A Poem About the Dying Bird on My Drive to Work
someone hit a bird, friday morning
didn’t stop to see it tumble into the street,
neck broken, pinwheeling wing over wing
over concrete– likely, the driver didn’t even notice
when the bird smacked their car, what’s a penny
to the rippling fountain, one wish lost as easy as life
between painted lines in the street– but i saw it,
and i stopped my car along the curb.
i knew what was going to happen,
but i pretended like there was a choice–
an option beyond ending, somewhere
we both continued past our intersection.
i grabbed a tissue from the center console,
approached the bird as a big thing
trying to act as a small thing, a safe thing
counter to the car, a kind thing reaching
and grabbing it between the folds of white.
i pinned the wings gently to its body,
but the head was crooked, snapped back
every second a jerk would seize the bird
and i would be struck by the dent in its head,
the concave where feathers usually fill out,
where the left eye is supposed to be
but was crushed inside its skull– the blood,
a dark red almost as black as its body
blooming a garden from the wreck
and i can’t forget how it gaped, soundless,
beak a hollow hanging, a lone tongue
wagging as if to sing one last song
or cry out a warning to a friend.
for a moment, i had to consider the rocks
lining the pavement. i would not leave it
for another car, would not let the same tragedy
strike twice, but i would not leave it to suffer,
could not bear to consider its uncontained twitches
nor the indifference of onlookers walking their dogs,
going for coffee, what’s a bird to the sunrise,
the droll of a morning commute– so i held it,
and stared at the rocks, and tried to imagine
lining up its dented head and making it quick
an absolute the car had not allowed already,
the sound of rock to hollow bone to concrete
again, and no more, the aftermath, the spill
wine red and bristled upon the curb
and where would mercy take me?
to murder? if it must, i thought,
if I had to.
holding and whispering, reassuring
the bird it was not alone, and i was so sorry,
and with wings held neatly in place
the fight had long left and it died still
in my hand.
i settled it under a tree, amongst the brush
wanting to bury it but knowing
i had to move my car and drive to work
off to a job where i would be useless,
when i began my day useless,
wishing i had the power to change anything
the life of one small catbird
my own life, if only i could
stop picturing the rock coming down
and down, and down, and down.
.
making space
for emma
my friends talk about growing up as a loss
innocence, strewn about on the sidewalk
as each step takes them further from red balloons,
the last time they were carried about as an airplane
a dinosaur-covered duvet, a dog who was more
like a parent, their parents who were once wise
and now fallible, riddled with faults, transitioned
to peers– and I would mourn with them,
if I believed twenty meant I can’t collect stones
on the beach, or every wrinkle was a mark
of death instead of a laugh line, and I’d grieve
even the Monday alarm of seventh grade,
for at least it was a promise of who
I’d get to see each and every day.
but my youth is in my pocket, I swipe a finger
and drag it across my cheeks like blush
til I am a firefly glow of memory, moreover
a mostly-young person with the occasional
bad knee, overdue bill, cog of the machine–
I keep water cooler conversation, crack
the same jokes I would at fifteen that I will
at fifty, and I tell my friends this, I tell them
I have not lost a thing, only
grown around it endlessly.
© Caleigh Larkin
Caleigh Larkin is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland in College Park, having completed a Poetry minor and literary notation from the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House, as well as being awarded the 2024 Henrietta Spiegel Creative Writing Award for Poetry. Caleigh has published locally in publications like the University’s own Stylus and lit mags such as AZE Journal. Caleigh recently moved to Baltimore, and is looking forward to publishing a chapbook this year.
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