bird-killer

the bay window at my parents’ house is a bird-killer.
a pandemic has stolen my young adulthood, so i move back in.
from the couch i count five birds colliding with the glass,
their feathers splay out and milliseconds pass before they
drop and embrace the ground.
i know what it’s like to fly into something that might be
solid. i watched doors and mirrors crack from my own lethal hands.
from anger i can’t place—
it radiates through tense muscles and split ends and
overgrown fingernails abused by gold polish.
i feel for sale. in need of a deposit.
leased on craigslist like
a duplicate wedding gift
like a barren swing set
the crib that can’t conjure up the child.

it snows in may and
the trees bend, their backs breaking like
tiny bird bones against the window.
this is the fetid orchestra of my early adulthood:
the intimacy of enough water and mud to patch up
holes in house foundations.
a knuckle snap. a glass smash.
sex in a squeaking bed
that heaves under my sadness.

time slows at my parents’ house.
now when birds die they say eulogies to an audience of just me—
a midair funeral before the wind comes to claim them.
i make sure to put blueberries in the bird feeder. my grief eats
out of my hand.
as a child i was told don’t touch the bird, it could have a disease.
now i can’t touch birds or people.

i used to imagine growing up as a ritual. tender rebirth. but it became a
lonely hike to the first place i got kissed. to where we used to park the car.
to the recycling bins waterlogged from last night. to the scarlet scraped knees of time
that i disinfect with the rest of my groceries.
to the ugliness of my childhood town bubbling over with tears.
to the dead bird dumped on the interstate in a tourniquet made from a baby’s fleece.
to my own guilty face in the mirror. bird-killer.

- Alana Dunlop