Little Bird

I sat on the broken porch steps with a warm beer going flat between my knees, watching that mangy cat take the sparrow right out of the air. The bird hit the gravel, still flapping, one wing bent completely backwards and blood bubbling at its beak. the cat pinned it down with a heavy paw, gave it one neat crunch through the neck, and that was that.

a few grey feathers drifted down while the thing twitched, eyes going milky, shit and blood going out both ends onto the dirt. I didn’t move. I took another stale swallow of the warm lager and watched the sun start to bake the mess down into the concrete.

the cat looked up at me once, its whiskers wet and red, then trotted off into the weeds. the sparrow lay there, the tiny ribcage jerking twice before it went entirely still. I crushed the tin can in my fist.

I’ve spent years feeling exactly like that piece of meat on the ground—shat out of the air by a world that didn’t even notice I was flying. the only difference is nobody is coming to finish me off with a clean bite. I just stay here, leaking slow in the heat, waiting for the rest of the body to catch up with the dead parts.

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