I’m out for a walk along the bluffs overlooking Vineyard Sound
To shake off the grip of premonition, of ominous threat.

Up ahead on East Chop Drive, I see a dark object caught
On the bare branches of a beach plum. A rat? A dead fish crow?

No. A brown glove snagged on the bush at a height where,
Blown thither by wind or secured by willing hand, its owner

Looking for a lost glove in cold weather might find it.
Farther on, something small lurches in the road, flails, stops.

A struggling squirrel? A wounded bird? No. Oak leaves, skittering.

On the roofline of a house along the shore, a Welsh Corgi weathervane
Whirls in the wind, its arrow pointing north-northeast, and I hear

A coming storm’s rumble. No, the steadfast Patriot charter, on its last run
of the day, chugs through chop, shuttling workers back to the mainland.

Entering the woods and almost home, I hear a voluminous rustle,
A helicopter whirr, so global a sound I can’t locate the perilous source.

Not so. I look up. In the absence of leaves, the branches of three
Or four towering oaks have flowered into a flock of wild turkeys.

Fifty or more settle and flutter, gobble and cluck. All through the night,
I think of them shifting from roost to roost, until they get it right.