with the sound of wings that weren’t there
a patch of yard held
what was left of a life
small as a breath,
light as a sigh
maybe a crow
maybe a hawk
maybe the sky itself
it didn’t matter who
only that the world had eaten again
and was clean about it
feathers like torn pages
scattered across dew
no sermon, no sin
just breakfast
i crouched,
and felt a kind of envy
for the certainty of hunger
looking at the feathers
i knew it wasn’t malicious
it was mealtime
it was survival dressed as cruelty
still,
somewhere inside the ribs of that quiet
i wished the world
had a gentler way
of keeping its feathers unruffled
