Little Bird

I sat on the broken porch steps with a warm beer going flat between my knees, watching that mangy cat nailing the sparrow mid-air like it was nothing. The bird hit the concrete still flapping, one wing bent wrong, blood already leaking from its beak.

Cat pinned it gentle, almost tender, then bit once, neat.

Feathers floated down slow while the little bastard twitched, eyes going milky, shit and blood squirting out both ends like the world was done with it. I didn’t move. Just took another dead swallow of beer and thought, yes, that’s how it goes—something alive one second, dead the next,

the young opponent,
licking chops and feathers wet,
bloody whiskers white.

The cat looked up at me, proud, mouth red, then trotted off like he’d paid rent. Bird lay there leaking, tiny ribs heaving once, twice, nothing. Sun baked the mess into the sidewalk.

I crushed the empty can, felt the ache in my gut, same old decay. Hell, I’ve been that bird plenty, snatched out of whatever half-assed sky I thought was mine. Difference is nobody’s coming to chew my neck clean.

I just keep bleeding slow, waiting for the limp part.

For Kari Jeppesen