did or could not say what true speed was1  
without impossible foreknowledge of 
jet-bombers, lasers, a crouched F1 car.
But this morning two sparring sparrows flashed
past my dull head into a wet azalea
and in that wing-touched moment of departure
my soul spoke, Oh. 

¹ Viz. Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica II.13 “The present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter…”

Catherine Rockwood (she/they) reads and edits for Reckoning Magazine. Two chapbooks of their poetry, Endeavors to Obtain Perpetual Motion and And We Are Far From Shore, are available from The Ethel Zine Press. A third chapbook, Dogwitch, is forthcoming from Bottlecap Press.