Blanking the Verse

All I see is a sparrow, and a dove

perched on the windowsill against the glass

and the sunfilm lets me get quite close up.

All I read is that the deaths have gone flat

even as the cases fizz and spiral

I don’t mean to disregard any pain –

yesterday I heard a friend of a friend

has passed, a colleague of a cousin lost

both her parents within weeks while away,

her mapped mother had slammed the borders shut

and so she wasn’t in on the last rites.

I’d heard in childhood even walls had ears

but now they’ve evolved into empty eyes

in which one screaming headline’s reflected

briefly followed by another, graver -

that chokes off the ability to scream.

Only the glass shows me a pair of birds

perched to avoid the worst of midday heat,

on the wall a death curve that has flatlined

somehow bends into the outline of hope

even though it’s probably transient

even though the numbers are enormous.

For  now I have the dove and the sparrow

and no guilt in choosing a narrow frame.

I have  for now much less than a blank wall

and to blot it out, I have this blank verse.