Lawn

In the end there is nobody out there.

The female blackbird bounces on the lawn

in the late afternoon, tossing up worms,

harvesting the edge of the flower bed

in two-legged hops, and off between the trees.

A black address book by the phone gives nothing:

Hello. A chat. Goodbye. It isn’t that.

A son, a friend, a neighbour. In the end

it booms; you hear it. Nobody is there.

From fence to fence the male birds shadow her

as if on guard, protective of their genes,

a square of grass and daisies briefly theirs,

– is briefly mine, but no one really cares

or knows why we are here or what it means.