Dry Cleaner Bird

The wind, it worries

at the plastic sign

of the cleaner's. A hurry

of grey clouds, a line

of cars. And there,

beside the curb,

a small thing. Barely

a shape to disturb.

Black feathers, dulled.

Its tiny head, askew.

No blood, no broken hull.

Just finished. A kind of true

silence. Its eye, a bead,

unblinking, catching the flat light.

A small, still seed

of ending. And the sky, too bright.