Human Sparrow

A large human shaped bird swooped down outside my window and fell
Didn’t catch its fall but I heard the people yell
Pushed back the curtain and saw what looked like, a splattered version of myself
Pearls from a necklace I had worn about my neck
No longer pearly white but rolling red on the cement
‘Seven stories flattened that child out!’, cried one of the women taking in the scene
Probably more like twenty something years in which no one heard her scream
An envelope was clutched getting damp inside one of her hands thrown across the street
An innocent child picked it up not knowing what it means
What it means to grow old as a young woman, watched but never really seen

Human sparrow looks like it was shot down with an arrow
Innocence, spread out on the ground beneath
Suicide from a duck and dive
What happened to your wings?
You didn’t use them this time as you flew
The beautiful broken things

One man saw the child looking down at what was in her hand
Walking up to her he asked her to give it over,  with a voice, of fatherly command
Not caring about DNA or traces of his fingerprints in the blood
He tore open the envelope and the letter fell and dropped into the mud
Now blood and dirt almost wiped the message away
But not before the man could read aloud the words: “I have finally flown away.”

Human sparrow looks like it was shot down with an arrow
But from where I stood I knew
All the pain of my living came flooding to my consciousness:
I experienced it anew
It was more than suicide from a duck and dive
Wings were torn like they were cut with knives
True I didn’t use them this time as I flew
But I never found them beautiful;
Just aching broken things
Fragile and made to fall off like the wind is made to sing
I wrote those words found in the letter before my wings gave way
Now this soul can join that body and make those words certain
“I have finally flown away.”