after Janice Harrington’s “Windshear”

i can’t explain the cardinals i’ve seen of late,
they kindle the trees like small glints of fire
spreading embers amidst the leaves from limb
to limb—but i know the space between us
is as thin as an eyelid and you said that red
birds were a loved one’s rapture—a sign
that we all can somehow seep back beneath
the palimpsest and return. i learned this sitting
on the slab of your porch in sunlight. you blew a kiss
to a red bird hiding on a fence post, and when the kiss left
your lips it billowed out with cigarette smoke you must have been holding
in your throat like a last breath     it billowed like the ghosts we used to run through
on clotheslines when we were children living next door to that black horse who would always run
in circles before it rained and i can’t explain this being       at the crosshairs of memory with no safety no solace in sight only that this might be an answer: my ribcage is a haven for a resting red bird
she shimmers round the edges with smoke       i understand it now. i see the reason and agree.