Emily Harman

is always a kind of beginning. 

     More beak than bird, my father said, like

he always did, when we spotted the kingfisher perched on a branch

above the water, blue-gray and motionless. 

   Its eye, like a black bead

catching the light, stared unblinking into the dark dropoff just beyond 

the dappled rim of the shallows. 

          It was true. 

        From below, it was 

hard to see exactly where the bird’s bill ended and its steely feathers 

began. 

        We sat together for what seemed like a long time and also 

no time at all, 

      the way every last time seems.

       The kingfisher, like

the glossy lip of the lake, was still until at once it wasn’t, the minnow 

glittering and alive just below the sun-warmed surface until at once 

it wasn’t. 

            The way it goes. 

                A beginning always a kind of end. 

The blade of the mouth indistinguishable, even to the fish, from 

the sharp weapon of the body.