when we killed that blackbird-
how it burst from the hedgerow
like gun fire, a tiny Apache,
its head cracking the glass
and the way its body fluttered in the wind
and in the shock of our silence.
It was quite funny
when you swept it away
with a flick of the windscreen wiper.
And so it’s awful
how pauses have become
the thick grouting of our conversation,
and these pale weeds of subject matter
stick their scrawny necks out again;
as we acknowledge them dimly,
like relatives we’re ashamed of.
Even this story of the bird
we’ll illustrate to each other over a slow drink,
and try to rekindle the impact of death,
the way everything stopped.
Now how its bones have become grass,
daisies and dandelion pioneers,
seeds caught on a cashmere sweater,
and the way we have witnessed our disintegration,
makes me wonder-
can things disappear forever,
or like the tide do they just slip away, briefly
before coming back
ever so slightly changed,
a different temperature, salinity, colour?
Alexander James Allen
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/blackbird-8/
