Bird-like is what
It is.
Scavenging trickster,
Two-faced, fence-sitting, strutting
The line between pain
and indifference;
Swaying in sequence
to a motorised tune.
The whirring, soft chirping, taxidermy
Toolkit;
buzzsaw artistry, flecks of
Feathered dust, and skinned
puzzle pieces sewn
Up into a quilt of crushed feathers
To wear
together. But grief isn’t all
Corvid, ruffled and pinned onto flesh;
Instead bony, unfledged and
Smooth,
and pocked like a
Porous rock; it soaks up through
Ancient bullet holes;
it sticks and
Slides off like the stuff from a yolk;
Burns and browns;
sizzles and curls
In the pan. A piece of myself, now
Upset, golden,
unborn