Self-Portrait With Writing a Poem

I used to know what a poem is.

And the scream of peacocks

used to know me.

And what does that mean? Here’s

another bird: the snowy egret 

stands one-legged and silent 

in flowing creek water, and neither

water nor egret knows the difference.

My own sharp beak spears

old tires, plastic bags, beer bottles.

The rushing water forces me

to plant my other foot. 

Feathered metaphor drops

from the sky like

a red-shouldered hawk

to its kill. I’m an eternal fall 

of converging lines to a point 

that’s never reached.

Remember the girl who dies 

by poetry? The poem glides 

quiet right behind her, 

pierces her heart

with its needle-thin beak,

her scream the peacock’s call.