Our gentle ducks
are both hit by one car
like the driver
was hunting them.
Bob survived,
his beak ripped off
gleaming green mallard head bobbing
stumbling
in circles of grief
and confusion
around the splayed feathers of his
dear dead wife, Anna.
A beakless Daffy
after a run-in with Elmer Fudd,
but with none of the loony humor.
No snapping that beak back in place.
Lewis forced to have the vet “take care of him”
and all of us
seeped in regret
for ever loving anything so fragile.