Podcast (claritycast): Play in new window | Download | Embed
For the price of a tooth, you can buy two from the boy with no legs. One to keep, the other to let.
As in ancient times, the first slit open over a bowl of fresh water, the second dipped into the blood
of its twin. Water beading on the sheath of its beak. As a child, I observed the talons’ delicate
architecture. How bent, the weighted tendons snap shut, clamping the toes in place. Even in sleep,
a bird will not lose its perch. A sparrow found on the front steps sputters like a guttering flame
when fed from an eyedropper. The tiny body is limp in my hand, cold in the ground where I lay it.
So tiny you could crush its skull between two fingers. The crunch of wingbones as the pitted struts
collapse. On the sidewalk, a bloodied wing, opened as if in flight. The rest of the bird, incomplete,
hovering overhead. The curve of bone like a feathered cuff. None of us escapes unscathed. None of us
is free. It’s true what they say, that airborne, a bird’s bones fill with flight. Set free in an open field,
the bird thinking why not me. What’s bright against its throat, smeared across keeled breastbone.
Each wingbeat a scarlet flash. The pressed-together parts mirrored in the bottom of the bowl.
Halves opening outward like sky.