A Matter of Fact

for David Crouse

The bird’s small mind has no space for the tangle of curtains or solidity of glass. It has only one room, a minute gallery, moments framed on the white walls: two greenish eggs in a nest built in roots, grass gone to seed. Here, a marble bust of an ant. There, a portrait of menace in yellow eyes. In the cat’s mind there’s a black door with a frosted window, backlit stencil reading “private.” Inside, a single metal chair, a bare bulb swinging from the ceiling on a black cord. The cat knows how this is going to end, but I don’t. That’s why I scramble to gather the bird off the living room floor, even though its wing doesn’t look right. I tell myself it needs quiet. I tell the cat, Don’t kill birds. He blinks his yellow blink. He doesn’t tell himself anything. In the morning, he drags the dead junco back into the kitchen. Muttering and reeling, I sweep while feathers resist sweeping, floating just in front of the dust pan for a second before renewing their flight.