Billy Bird

It was a baby bird.
We put it in a box and we gave it a first name.
We called him Billy Bird, after our favorite outlaw though we knew this was no game.
He died a simple death, just before Dad got home.
I didn't cry but my brother sobbed.
We dug a tiny hole out in the summer clay by the Aspen grove.
We made a tiny cross out of sticks and grass to mark the shallow grave.
I asked my Mom, "so what happens next?"
She said,
"Well, first we're gonna pray... and then he stays here and we go home."
I'd just turned 12 years old. My brother was 18.
We'd been driving for two days.
Dad made comedic quips, while mother bit her lip
and they even tolerated our punk band's demo tape.
All my brother's crap was piled up in back
and the way he rambled on I could tell that he was nervous.
We saw the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon
and even wrestled till the front desk called in Vegas.
Then we drove silently into the city and a campus made of stone.
When we unloaded his stuff, Dad was sad but tough.
He said "don't forget how to use the phone."
Then he stayed there and we went home.
You cut down the tree, turn the tree into wood,
turn the wood into ash, make that ash into mud.
You turn that mud into clay, and that clay into stone,
then you carve out a hole and you call it a home.
Then the belly gets all big and round and family comes from out of town.
You plant a tree to make it all true so when the wind comes whistling through
it goes "ahoohoohooh"