BLACKBIRD

I buried a blackbird today,
but I left his beak free.

That's the hardest part to cover, in the end,
even when eyes can't see, or mouth can't speak.

It seems wrong to further silence
what has already been silenced.

He was a tri-coloured bird.
Black everywhere, except the inside of his beak,

his unseeing lids, which were white,
and red for the last entrails, last vestige of pulsing blood.

He was in perfect form, though limp of neck,
falling exactly between the road running right

and the road running left. He was just outside
our driveway, central to my vision.

Waiting for me to pick him up,
and tenderly bring him home.

for George Floyd

(joining in the work of other poets at DVerse Poets' Open Link Night).