Obsequy

I.

I should give the robin a proper burial given the season,
rather the month, of my grandfather’s death.
              I was told there’s a theory that describes different types of remembering.
What harvests my memory: the city wearing the horizon
like a rash. I open the backdoor to a wooden porch, patch
of green on concrete. Something outside wants this to be easy.
Instead of scouting the source, I toss the bird into the yard, sweep dust
into the corner. I’m repressing.
             Two dreams ago, my grandfather was an animal paralyzed
in a field. It’s been years, this beast. A friend asks if I had time
to name the bird, what would it be. My answer: Not yet.


II. 

Behind the robin, a scatter of weeds—dandelions, daisies, thistles—
my father thirsts to uproot. The grass around is stale-yellow.
The sky carries gray. When I touch the bird, my fingertip digs,
disappears is—never mind.
                About being broken, the fence with a small hole in the middle.
The chronic problem with openness is where. What enters:
a wind, a lament that forces surrender
over the bird.
                It doesn’t rain—of all the seasons, not this.
I hear a siren chime, fade. My father screams my name
from the window, but the window is closed.


III.

How many times have I seen the dead robin between gravel, greenery,
and the ugly stains left by midnight’s storm? Every angle captures
darkness. Where the scarlet belly avails the disrobed feathers, a tiny fist-
sized hole.
              I can forge many things: my love for overcast, patterns, nostalgia
for my grandfather.
              What if, instead of “bury,” we say “decorate”?
Isn’t that graceful—the tongue dabbing the roof to feel favored?
I know it’s inconsiderate of me to muscle beauty into everything.
I don’t speak when I decorate the bird with my shoe and dirt.
What I mean is, there once was a robin.