Twice, Two Dead Birds Now

Twice, two dead birds now
found fallen
outside two homes I carry
the older pair to a shrine
shoe the chicks to the yard
alongside three live bullets George found
in the Detroit diamond mines.

"... clear omens" I ponder
rolling pennies from a jar in an early June
calico wind questioning
the answer being something hard for a child to understand.
"... no, you can't come with me."





Children are future
kids are the worst, gimmie the birds and their wings
... shrieking on and on and ...
onto blighted neighborhoods
out to
succumbed silence
and drawn down power lines

"... and the way they smell!"
Hot.
unrefined, like
the hour before the golden hour.
In a flat land comin from the Valley City





house haunting in Detroit
passing a cemetery
pressing two dead baby birds
 - hair not yet feathered -
"just what the hell you think you're doing near a foreign river?!"

bowing to new horizons,
or trying to.