Ruth Padel
Where Clavicle and Wishbone Fuse
Where Clavicle and Wishbone Fuse
Radar operators, picking up echoes from migrating birds
write ‘Angels’ in the logbook, because they come
unbidden. Their licking silhouettes belong
to the school of night, drawn on
for hours across the moon by a magnetism you might
if they were us, call faith, and they keep going
on a butterball of gold fat glowing
in the breast like a secret love
where clavicle and wishbone fuse.
Silk-gristle wings, so easily blown off-course
or bagged by hawks and guns
in blue-blush-ivory dawn
at crossing-points of continents: Bosphorus,
Camargue, Gibraltar. Triggered by high winds,
barometric pressure, a drop in temperature,
the dying of summer flies or autumn seed; and inner need.