Baby Bird

Not much is left of the carcass,
a few dark crumbs,

the beak still attached to the skull,
small nails on thumbs.

Ants are known for efficient compassion.
They have picked and culled

until all that's left could be boiled
and give off no smell.

There is nowhere the sign of a feather.
I expect the weather
will dispense with whatever is left.

But we must ask further,
if this bird, so narrowly alive,
became even more deprived
when it fell
from nest to the ground

and made even worse
by the accident of becoming verse,
though, in truth,
I don’t think that it really matters.