What failing

is this that looks like skin
taut on drum,
bones and spirit knocking loose inside
                                    like
                      a sparrow’s final bloom
across this phone screen
standing tall, scraping sky.

Cruel diamond lights, greener grass
reflections; the clearest
signs make no announcement.

How is it to blind
              a bird
then blame it for going astray,
for it to bend towards home
but never arrive?

Gravity grieves
for the first great
sky full of stars. You scratch
my back so
I scratch too.

                                               One of us
will not survive the plague; what failing
is this that anyone could predict who.