my hands         a river

in a flood plain            fingers branch             repeat

branch             repeat

your white blood cells            branched         repeated

folded papers              look starched

ironed              as they drop

not from the belly of a plane              but

one by one                  to the table

each a small breeze                 touches down

flocks              rustles             flows over

drops               to the floor                  making room

like SANDHILL cranes             in the thousands do

their red-topped crowns                      like the wound

in my throat          they stop               strung along the PLATTE                    

feed                  rest                 before flying

on         SADAKO-SAN             did you ask yourself

will they get there       in time?           these cranes

we craft           strung end to end       with beads       touching

down in the ear           of a nearby god 

Jay Brecker walks and writes in southern California. His poems are forthcoming or have appeared in Rattle Poets Respond, Birdcoat Quarterly, The Shore, Permafrost, Lily Poetry Review, Ocean State Review, RHINO Poetry, and elsewhere. His manuscript, blue collar eclogue was a finalist for Concrete Wolf’s 2023 Louis Award.