The smoke betrays you, balling out into the room
to hang like a shroud.
Stopped in the flue above the baffle, wings folded
at terrible angles, there is nothing to you
but a beautiful, plumed husk, light as a wasps’ nest,
woven from the thinnest bones.
Outside, a gusting breeze seeks to resurrect you.
We dream your damson heart quickens
at the scurried grass, its possibilities of mice and shrew,
but you are long gone,
deceived by the darkness that shielded you,
the black promise that drew you in.
As the May sun chases shadows across the ground,
to the song of blackcap and wren we carry you
to the far field, its riven oak swarming with ivy,
and prop you inside the trunk: a ball of soft nothing,
one small hole that remembers your eye
and claws gnarled knots that could only scratch and scuff
the dreadful steel, your last glare fixed
on the far circle of stars above your twisted wing.
