The discrete return
of the three AM bird–

coming earlier
in winter, at midnight

a half-dreamed
robin-like call,

or all-dreamed
but half-awake,

bright against
the grainy dark,

a summer call,
the kind you hear

when mornings
dawn cool in the face

of all the day’s heat,
another tell,

as now days
are frozen

and the nights
are even colder.