The Underworld
by Sharon Bryan
When I lived in the foothills
birds flocked to the feeder:
house finches, goldfinches,
skyblue lazuli buntings,
impeccably dressed chickadees,
sparrows in work clothes, even
hummingbirds fastforwarding
through the trees. Some of them
disappeared after a week, headed
north, I thought, with the sun.
But the first cool day
they were back, then gone,
then back, more reliable
than weathermen, and I realized
they hadn't gone north at all,
but up the mountain, as invisible
to me as if they had flown
a thousand miles, yet in reality
just out of sight, out of reach—
maybe at the end of our lives
the world lifts that slightly
away from us, and returns once
or twice to see if we've refilled
the feeder, if we still remember it,
or if we've taken leave
of our senses altogether.