By Muna Mir
In the early morning
a sparrow was delivered to my doorstep.
Splayed on the stone tiles, it sits
feathered and still, cold
in the morning light.
I did not wish to look at it.
You know how I am
never wanting to look death in the eye,
only the underbelly
which I thought I could penetrate
before it penetrated me. Still it stuck.
Small god of thresholds,
staring straight,
surely a premonition
for something else,
something worse, I thought,
then grew quickly regretful.
Sorry for my neglect: willful negligence
of soft and easy death
laid bare at my feet, and which I wished
to leave my sight. Assuming providence,
I’d discarded the dead
for some portent of which it was not.
I urged it to withdraw
for fear of what it could do
even after it had done all it would.
It lay cold and quiet on my doorstep.