A dead bird
at five o’clock in the morning
on Father’s Day
lies in the grass
like a turned-up weed.
Bulletproof coffee
in one hand,
a lighter in another
to ward off tiny mosquitos
with a flick to the citronella candles,
I squint toward
the dead lump.
Man down!
cries a brother
while another lands close by
and flies off without a sound.
The air is already warm
and the sky is dusk in reverse.
Was it just his time
to go or was he just tired of it all?
A too-quick dog
wraps drooling jaws
around the carcass
before my son
gets to it with a garbage bag.
So, this is it. Dogs and garbage bags
mark The End.
I go inside to make breakfast
for a man who has made me laugh
for 25 years
and became a father the first day he
said I do to us.
Man, up.
© 2023 Jennifer Wagner