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The plural of anything is bound to be sharper:
countless birds spelling V above my head.
Where they land, a field must slightly compress,
hardening under their cool weight.
Wing-shadows held against their breasts.
Each bird only tries to be
what it is, and people call this intelligence.
We write it down, star it somewhere in our notes.
When our minds wander, they go alone.
Ben Purkert’s poems appear in The New Yorker, AGNI, Fence, and The Kenyon Review.
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