by Sufjan Simone

Created on: June 21, 2007

Voyeur

And after the day left her hands,
the sparrows came down from the tree
to peck at the crumbs near her fingers.

For a few moments they had been afraid
of her open eyes that did not see them.

So they lingered on the windless
limbs, longing for those crumbs,
after the shadow had twisted away
into the distance.

No, I must not be allowed to say these things
as if they were part of a sad film on love and death.
They allow you to utter
"How sad, how very sad!"

They exude the scent of murder.
I, too, have violated the incident,
violated the person whose death

Becomes this poem.
And you are now an accomplice,
staring at her exposed leg
as the camera cranes up, up above the tree.

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