Homage to Messiaen
Click, click, click.
My husband picked them off
with his camera
as they were flying
across the sky to reach
sundown’s reddened roosts:
birds skewered
prematurely,
arched forever
against our living room wall.
But in truth they are still
winging—iridescent, shining
outside their cadre.
Like the notes
the composer first fixed
as straight pins:
preternatural prisms,
wood thrush
flushed from the ground,
bouquet of pheasants.
