Dawn Chorus - 2025 Academy of American Poets Contest honorable mention

Dawn Chorus

sadness flows down like cold saliva
i feel it in the back of my head
like an egg from the hand of a child
not one, two
it washes ashore
but it does not live here
a guest of a porch
the moth on a stalk
and i understand
it builds, like the shadow of a foreign craft
over the golden sands
i can feel the space it creates between my ears
i watch it peak like a mountaintop
the night is cold
time is bent like bloody handwriting
might it not end but loop around?
back where we have begun
a familiar sound
drowned in another
slide off the top
fat off a leveled pig
rats nests mourn at the cries of this finch
and God lays him forever to rest
twisted brick wall
brown and white
bend through the skies like a lonely dragon
a heavy head blooms on pillows
but a heavy neck wakes on fresh sheets
a million blue jays
open their beaks to reveal their face of blue
across the longest river
of all.