My Dad Comes Back as a Sparrow
on the anniversary of his death On this day with sky, not sky, but more like soil sinking into lungs, You decide to visit as a sparrow, dark earthen stripes shooting lightning shrill across your head, then racing, as summer, along your wings. Not content to sit and peer into the window’s mirror, you chat small bird news to those beyond And tilt your bead eyes into my room, throat opening up to tell of ice and hard, rich pellets ant-sealed within the feeder’s varnish, Of how one boxelder bug stops to lure with fiery wings, propped safe inside, within a flowerpot. You stop and lift...
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