Bowling Green is surrounded by a patch of
cobblestoned sidewalks, and the pigeon was lying
in the sun on the uneven stones. It was on its side
and stiff,
dead. I almost stepped
on it. When I finally moved away a van backed
into the spot he'd been waiting for and parked
its ass. The shade would keep it safe
for a bit.
They found it outside in the
parking lot, and
brought it in, scooped with a
plastic bowl.
The bowl sat on our teacher's desk through
Earth
Science,
algebra, and
English Composition.
It was a small small thing, transluscent pink and
tiny beak. Little beads for eyes and you could see
veins, blue and quivering through its skin-like
membrane. No feathers. Spindly legs like slivered
toothpicks, heaving. When it stopped, we buried it
near the climbing tree and went back
inside.
It is snowing today and people are
using umbrellas to save their hair. The couple
in front of me crosses the street and she is so
intent on wresting her
umbrella open that she does
not notice she has stepped on a flattened out
sparrow.
It is a mess of feathers and little
broken bones. I
can't even stop.
The nice principal, Mrs T.,
remembered that I was the one who buried the first
almost-
fledgeling and came to tell me there was another one in the school's circular driveway.
This one's
already dead, she said.
Can you bury it?
I buried it near where I'd buried the other one.
It was two years and the brick had grass growing through
its holes. I found another brick to cover the freshly
dug earth and they sat like twin tombstones.