He’s on the beach
each evening, motionless

among the feeding birds
until their nervous flutter

fades and they fold
their curved white wings,

peck the sand
as if he isn’t there;

and he feels then as if he isn’t,
as if being big and wingless

doesn’t matter anymore,
not to him, not to them,

at least till someone
in the distance calls his name

and they shiver up around him,
storm the sky like snow gone crazy

and he feels for a flash
he could almost be lifted away.