Vigil for a Bird
Her fetal cheek should not
press against this gray
resting place: the raw swirl
of her alien flesh, dropped
from the sky, is a small shock, exposed
on the dirty sidewalk. She had no chance
for flight: her silver scattered
feathers are little as the pinky nails
of a human child and shine like eyelashes
in the sun, though the lids of her eyes
bulge, blue-tinged and sealed,
translucent skin revealing
pupils in the unseeing bulbs
beneath. Her open beak waits
for a mother; the ants crawl in.
She does not feel their procession
down the tunnel
of her throat, or the breeze lifting
thin pink webbing
where a wing won’t be. Dust loosed
from a man’s passing boot
anoints her curved back
and children will kneel down
to visit her before the rough quills
of a broom nudge her body
into a bin for waste.
Clara Collins is a poet and middle school teacher located in Bellingham, Washington. She has an MFA from The University of Oregon and her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Ellipsis, Radar Poetry, Lucky Jefferson, Qu, Poetry South, and elsewhere. She is currently working on her first collection.
