When I was a bird.

I forgot once
to quiet the bird before dawn.
And forever but only one day
I listened and wept
while she sang,
and sang.
 
The next day her mother called,
she demanded from me
the date of her death.
She wept and beat
her fists on my feathered chest
and I sang.
 
At her funeral I drank quietly
in the back
because it rained
and rained.
And I didn’t know how to quiet my thirst
as her body was lowered into the Earth.