MOCKINGBIRD 

Don’t know, do we, which what have we 
we have— 

which? 

The cardinal, crow, sparrow, catbird, 
truck backing up, car alarm 

or their objectless reflection? 
Mirrored sound 

no call but a call back, 
a vocal mirage and everchanging 

a treetop funhouse 
floor sliding out from under. 

Look for the encyclopedic call’s heart, 
ordinary in its deception 

common-feathered, yes, but why? 

Who knows branch, street, sky so well 
it can become them 

become us, you, 
say it is you, say I am you? 

Itself 
in a habit of camouflage. 

PETROGLYPH,
CAPITOL REEF STATE PARK

After the deer ate the apples 
fallen from the campsite trees and skirted off 
in the angled light 

after the breakfast flames smoldered and we rubbed our plates 
clean with dirt 

packed hats, water, and the trail map refolded so often 
it tore like tissue, after that 

we reached the canyon door, flakes of skyscraper walls 
on the floor and a broken sign—beware 

flash floods. Water, 
cursing through the narrow mouth of a gouged-out eon 
a sudden fierce, accomplished anger, certainly 
beware 

and the exitless lair of the bobcat. 
Despite 

and because of, we double-knotted our laces, 
pocketed the map, hiked for what seemed like miles 
and there, there on the left 

below shoulder height on a breast of canyon heaving 
in heat, the mark of a woman 
or a man staking ground, chiseled, nonerasable 

as if there was no end to time.

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© Copyright, Denise Bergman 
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