From The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, Royal Society House, London, 1729-1747
Digital image courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library
The red breasted
Robin in the yard
Changes every
Day a little more.
Bird eyes, once brown,
Are now a milky gray. Feathers
Are fraying into threads of dirt.
Legs shrivel into twigs. Years ago,
Kid-crowded in the park we held
A funeral. A dead bird someone
Found. I laughed and Christa Brown
Got mad. “Be serious!” she said. I suppose
I’m serious as I walk to work past the robin,
His beak peeling back its little husk. At night
I roll a skinny j, seal it with a lick. I sit here
On the porch steps, smoke. Death behaves this way, moves
His hands, breathes the same as us. Under the shroud of stars:
My robin, cold, constant, red-breasted like a feathered heart.
Smoke reels skyward, slims its tendrils into night. I stub my ember
On the rail, and then descend the stairs onto the darkened lawn grass,
Lean down, touch his crinkled ankle, chuckle, like I’ve known him all my life.