There’s a dead cedar waxwing
Yellow and white and black
On a shovel on the front porch
How it got there is a story
Why is too
My mother asked me
To bury it
To get it out of sight
She was embarrassed
Someone would see it
And blame her
She told me maybe
Her front windows
Were so clean
The bird thought
It was flying into
The blue sky
Like most everything
On God's green earth
She was sad about it
And mad
At the same time
(Yellow Chair Review, Fall 2016)