Song
this swan had run herself
into a steel wire web
where streetlights hang above the running path
that drapes around our lake
two girls and their mother
called "animal police" they said
in broken English when I asked
I didn't know the beaks of swans
turned blue for any reason but
this one's neck had broken
gracefully, or the opposite of grace:
she was still alive in silence
opening her mouth for air each time
her head rolled and plopped staccato in the water
her vertebrae no longer formed
that immortal swan shape you would recognize
other birds around her honked
two dragged the blue beak back and forth
mercy looked to us on the sand violent
we tried to shoo them off
her dropping head was every kind of pain
not lessened by the other swans
the late animal police
least by our witness