Had I glanced from buttering my toast
a moment before, would my heart
have been riven by the fierce thrust
of beak and claw? Great wings
shadowing the window like fate,
my parakeet trills, swinging
in its cage like bait until a thump
thunders the pane. I look up
into a drizzle of feathers, the hawk
dying on the ground below, wings
unfurled against the snow in a swoop
that seemed a sure thing.