The big mockingbird robs the dumpster, and three
policemen press into the woods behind our apartment
complex where you lie. They gouge the hole
in the fence, wallpapered with the growth of vine. 

One morning, we woke up to a battered-open can
of beans on concrete stoop, shared between eight other
renters, some of whom feed the stay cat who kneads
our threshold every now and then, built it a box to rest.

Scared, the mimic bird tweets like a robin to cops
from the electric line, shoveling insults–peering
where I can’t see, to you and the narrow stretch 
of woods over the fence to another street, its apartment line. 

Remember, each unmounting day, there’s a new opening
towards grace. I imagine living rough there, so close: loosed, separated.