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.