Joseph Cornell

A bird in a box of snow 
and shards of mirror; a border 
of porous sky. She sits—a body 
of crumbled gray bricks—above

the harbor, the water fenced
by pilings. A ship cruises through
from east to west—a simulation
of wind, a dirty deck, piles of snow.

There are no connections to be made
save nature’s bizarre context,
the frame that holds inertia, the way
a bird can perch on snowclouds,

the way steel and steam can glide
on the mirrored flood. There is nowhere
to go but from one frame to the next,
from box to box until the pores 

open up and life slips through
like eggs briefly free, hanging uncased,
fluttering in white light, falling
until they crack on the watery lens.

MB 2006

A bird in a box of snow
and shards of mirror; a border