Arctic Jaeger

This bird comes between the light
and your reading, hang-glides
in the corner of your eye, a pirate

with a feather in its cap--a sly con
riding the breath of your best line;
flying straight out of Olson's delirium tremens

hangs around with dead things
under its wing; heavier than a night heron
like a loose-winged falcon:

take its shape to mean blood sport
on our terms. Lines drawn from the breath,
one flash of meaning following

another, a bad draft tangled in its claw
a quote from Cohen's The Future
in its bill--this bird cuts out descriptions

its flight over bleak oceans
tells no story, its white plumage a flying page
written in a language not endangered.