Bird Burial

I held its last ten seconds in my cupped hands.

There had been a thump, a thud, a crashing
against the window-pane,
which I didn't see but imagined
from the facts: a young starling, twitching
on the ground, by the window on one side,
below the giant maple on the other.

So I held it, dying, and listened
to the cracks above, the fissures and
ruptures in the summer-blue sky,
its dome folding in, collapsing
around my head. Spitting shards
of the heavenly bowl. And then,

Then I buried it all under a garden stone.