Morning After

Across the yard, third floor, last night's pumpkin has started to give at the mouth, the grin gone soft the way a joke does told once too often.

Six degrees, low sky, the whole block still asleep on a Sunday that belongs to the dead by the calendar and to nobody yet by the clock.

A blackbird drops onto the rail, looks the face over, and goes in by the left eye.

It comes out with seed. Goes back. Comes out. By noon the thing that was cut to scare children will be mostly a door.