Omens

I have been wandering in shadowland
since I heard the news
I thought I would want to wail to the moon
but I have gone dim and small
a moth trapped in fingers

I thought I would have many more years of you
now everything is heavy with omens
I see an unkindness of ravens
rising in an empty sky
a siren howling through wet streets
daffodils struggling from a translucent sheath
my grandmother's teacup, crazed
with translucent cracks like my composure

What was once a flight of green stairs to a secret door
is now caged with shadows, whizzing with insect wings

the first faint quiver of light along the eastern rim
after a night of hunching oneself around pain
is an omen too ponderous to be ignored
even my grief is a fierce gladness