Still on the Line

A string of starlings strung out on a wire, over a road bridge above a freeway. It's cold, it is sleeting, its November. The line hums, I can't hear the hum, but the birds can, they fluff up stiff feathers they cling to that warm sound, they listen, their tightly gripped claws listen as thin boned legs ever so slightly vibrate to that nonexistent heat source. The sky continues to howl around them. Oddly, strangely, they may survive - hard to know for sure. An hour later, driving back the starlings are still on the line. Don't know if any dropped dead I didn't count them before. In my head an old vinyl record plays Glen Campell.