Domestic Sonnet Op. VIII

The Longest Day of The Year

Today marks the longest day of the year, your birthday,
it’s also father’s day and in the garden our youngest
discovered the bones of a sparrow.
Its structure, a respiratory system
built for flight, a fuselage.
He was fascinated that this delicate fossil
had more bones in its neck than a giraffe.
Imagine that he said.
Imagine that.
And we did —
and we wondered if his family circled above,
trying to locate where their father had gone.
For them the days remain long as we now move
towards equinox.

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