Sconsolato

It is nothing, I reply, when
thanked for donating you money, or
making you a dinner, or when

asked what true cost the
endurance of all this is. A red bird

crosses my path, shoots like a
dropping bullet of death across my path
down, then down, then down

if I were a bird, or if I continue on
in this fashion
you will never see me like a ground bird, a thrush, a towhee
kicking leaves, making a racket, in the underbrush

if either is true I will be found to
lay across the limbs of trees, up in the trees,
limb to limb, bone to bone, awkwardly,
and embarrasedly, and you'll be pained, but where a red bird
can be free to
shoot his looping call, his deathly flight path,

all over my continued persistence to
speak nothing of myself, the obvious, the death path
and much less you.