Burying The Rooster
Rain the last few days, & rain now, & yard mud sucks at our boots, our shovel blades, the hole below the apple sapling filling with dirty water even as we dig. Until a moment ago, the old bird had been side-eyeing us, each low cluck forcing blood from the skunk bites all down his black-feathered breast. I kept thinking he’d call it quits. When he didn’t, I told my son — nine this winter, & taller than the other boys, awkward, brimming with wonder & troubles — Look the other way. Then raised up my shovel. Now he kneels in the mud & grass, my son, & lowers Frankie into the grave. Gently, gently he smooths the green, fantastic tail feathers, rights the broken neck’s odd loll. Ever say a prayer for a dead rooster in the rain? Ever hold hands with a big, sad boy who will be bigger than you someday? I’d stand here for hours if I could. Days. Years. Right here in the cold rain.
Things My Daughter Pretends
that she has fairy wings that she is seventeen that she can talk to dogs in dog language that her sister got sick & died of a sickness in her heart right here she says & thumps her own thin bones that whenever she wants she calls Taylor Swift on the phone that she has a phone that the house that burned down last summer was ours that we built it back from rain-splash & ashes that she’s made supper in the shallow cups of her hands do you want goulash or tacos that her gown is at the cleaners that she got invited to the ball but decided not to go that sadness is a choice & depending on the day not necessarily a bad one that she is a chickadee a trout a lost girl & why she asks did you go away behind every tree I looked for you but you were nowhere to be found so I had to use my powers & save myself okay I say yes she says I guess it is it’s okay
