Shaped by iron

into the furnace emerges two hands grasping

oxygen, fuel, wood, emerges a third child, a third soul between them.

Through roughly pushed letters on an Egyptian receipt - I read on the soul

like a brother. I cannot feel him there. A flock of birds?

I cannot feel them there. It is half of May: I cannot feel it there.

Third child sprawls at the window and falls in love,

flock of birds fallen to a vagrant shooting star,

a mother sordidly duffs up a pillow

to an explosion of feathers -

and with wonderful patterned movements the bird it falls

like following lace with eyes,

and with calloused work we grow soft,

and it’s all within reach until it stops.

Little third soul, flanked on both sides by Providence,

looks with amazement at the star, lurching south, cruel thing.

Before the third soul,

love was winched up in them

like a girl from a river,

tumbling out of plastic onto the ground.

Narcissus and Echo shared a glass

as the third soul fixed its gaze at a wall,

Now from the ground sprouts Narcissus,

trampled, trampled, and gone. I cannot feel him there.

A love is raised as if dredged by some extraordinary machine,

and balding fuji doesn’t see snow anymore.

Laika was out to play,

she flipped as she jumped for the ball.

She held the ball for days,

they couldn’t wrench it from her snared mouth

so it joined her in the space chamber, later on.

Third child sprawls at the window and falls in love,

pillowed and warm, poised for flight.