Cardinal by James Crews

Be someone’s cardinal
glimpsed between leaf-shadows,
flit of brightness so startling
they have to blink to believe their eyes.
Be the reason someone looks up
from the cracked blankness of concrete
and remembers the world
is so much larger than what’s locked
inside head and heart. Be the red
swoop from tree to tree, the thread
that stitches one uncertain
moment to the next.