The silky-speckled Grackle
cries as twisted feathers paper-cut
                                a bruised side.
Leaping into the wind, with miniature parachutes for wings,
        the ground dives into a beak.
Birthed containing bone-marrow too dense,
                         hovering requires a body builder,
                       not a heavily fragile bird.
Shifting on a branch, precariousness at its peak, the twig snaps.
Tumbling and Contorting
Ice winds the strength of stalagmites frame feathers with their frost.
     Heavy weights magnetized to this heavily fragile body.
The dirt catches like a soft glove, a yarned winter.
The silky-speckled pebbles smear the Grackle
        into the shadowed soil.
   Every feather, as bitter, as tart, as tense,
as the bacteria’s former decompositions.
     Each common feather had its name.