White Psalm

by Alan DeNiro

Originally published on July 1, 1997

I’m writing this on a napkin that hopes
to be a bird, somehow. And not a swan
but a tern, white soot flecking past the ropes
of sails in a port. The inky swan,
night, lingers close, and waits to pull its hood
and drawstring. Can terns fly blind? I scribble
farther on this thin wing than I dared. Should
I recant? [...]