The Perplexities of Dead Birds and Green Mold

My mother is cleaning out the fridge

When there is a thump

Like a gravedigger's final pat

On the soil covering a coffin

In a graveyard filled with stones

And all the windows shake.

My aunt looks up from where

She is playing Ring Around the Rosie

With my little sister and nieces

Do you think she knows

That game is about death?

So many omens.

She goes out to the front porch

And is gone for a few moments

When she comes back

There is something cradled between her cupped hands

Something small and feathery

And still.

She walks into the kitchen

And shows my mother

Who is still kneeling in front of the fridge

Surrounded by long since spoiled hamburger

And the lasagna in the back of the fridge

That everybody forgot about.

"Look at this," my aunt says

With the slightly hollow tone

Of someone who is in the presence

Of a capsule devoid of life

And will soon forget about it

Like it never had breath in the first place.

She shows my mother what rests

In the fragile casket she has made with her hands

It's a bird

A little thing of feathers

Who worried like us

But perhaps had more freedoms.

"Oh," my mohter says

Tone trapping the same counterfeit sorrow

As my aunt had

In that "Oh" a cage is constructed

Capturing a shadow of

The real thing.

"Poor little guy must've flown in the window,"

My aunt says

Already wondering if by providing

A makeshift casket for the body

That is not quite cold yet

She has caught some form of disease.

The instinct to protect the children

From knowledge about corpses

As though it will save them from inevitability

Has not yet kicked in for my aunt or mother

And so my sister and nieces' curiosity

Compells them to enter the kitchen.

There is nothing false about

Their horrified exclamations

Children are not accustomed to loss

They have not yet learned

To pretend it does not exist

Their pain is real.

It is my aunt's job to distract them

She promises the children

That later they will hold a funeral for it

And she ushers them into the living room

Where, huddled on the couch,

They will all watch a movie with a happy ending.

The bird is set on the kitchen counter

On top of a paper towel

As my mother continues with the task

Of separating the acceptable things

From all the things we leave behind

My mother reaches inside the cheese drawer

And huffs a sigh thinking on

How later she will lecture the children

Not to waste food

They will not listen

She will do it anyway.

Next to the bird

She places what she has drawn from the drawer

A sandwich bag

Containing a half eaten block of cheddar

Most of the cheddar is no longer recognizable

But sprouting green mold.

It is absurd in a sense

That such a pairing should occur

The bird, body stiffening, eyes glassy

But still containing vestiges of shock

The mold, so thriving, so bright

So much left to it.

But on the other hand

It makes a strange sense

The bird will at dusk tomorrow

Be placed in a cardboard box and committed to the Earth

The cheese will be tossed in the compost bin

Both will be left to rot.

Funny

How we treat our dead

With more care, dignity, and respect

Than we treat our living.

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