Everything Everything

her whole weight in my hand over

the fresh pavement, syrup
coming out her beak. Too old or

too young, I say later at the café,
either way…
                     & I’m thinking of my own broken

neck & speech ripped-out, scalding bus fender
in the sun. Have I been loved,

can it be enough? & where
are my books now, what good are they

on their sides like me,
spines cracked?
                     Look, if I’m feeling

safe now & that’s unattractive, sorry. I killed
her with my bike.

And all I could think of
after my breath

were the poets, then WCS volunteers with dysentery
or parasites maybe somewhere trying to save

something—or reverb, catalog guitars,
jangly single-pickup misanthropy, a cream & coffee—

& I left the bird dying
fast under a mechanic’s bushes.