Man Up

 

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

 

 

OLN