Some Sparrows

Lately, I've been watching them, pecking
furiously at the ground,
then retreating into the eucalyptus,
where they stagger like compasses
before their tiny hearts quit and they drop,
stone-like.

Sometimes my cat
will sniff them and jerk back
as if pierced on the nose by a needle.
In the dark they go on dying.
While burying them I have shoveled newspapers,
their bloody lips decayed, a child's
lucky penny, a rusted pipe
that goes nowhere, the roots of weeds
tangled like kite strings or hearts . . ..
Tonight, as if for the last time, I hold
my woman's face. Were I to die, my eyes' vaults
would crave light. When I go, place a dying spar
row
in my hands. My soul will find a tree to perch
on.