Goldfinch

Mine are reluctant ways
and unhealthy rooms.
The finch in the cosmos,
its beak shedding husks,
is something else.
He sings with a mustardy fervor.

Cosmos bends to high winds
governed by seagulls
first rains come
to seal autumn’s broken terraces,
but not the finch.

Desirable in himself
the goldfinch rides
like some ineluctable joy
the resisting stem
and settles to pester black seeds
from an orchid bloom.