A Pair of Tanagers by Mark Jarman

 A Pair of Tanagers

The scarlet male, his green mate, their black wings
Inside the A/C unit in the dul dirt:

They look at first like a child's abandoned toys.
But ants and iridescent flies have found them,

Working along the seams of the shut beaks
And the dark indentations of the eyelids.

You want to give somehthing like this a moral:
Like, the woods these days are full of hard illusions.

Or, never fly north if you think you're flying south,
Or, stay above rooftops; if you meet yourself

Coming, it's too late;; death is a big surprise.
And their death together certainly startles us.

Stopped short. But how recently in the rain forest,
How recently in the place they were first named,

Reflected on the Amazon, the Orinoco,
Headlong from Brazil, into our window.

You want to give something like this a moral
Or see it as an omen, a portent.

And then, the long journeying comes to mind,
Together such a distance, to this end.