I saw a crippled bird dying in a junk heap today, down by the train station. We stared at eachother, while it stiffened, raising the soft underside of the wing for the last time. It seemed to petrify in those last seconds, as the dust settled. I scooped up the warm body, and dug a shallow grave in the dirt with a broken beer bottle. I covered it with small stones, a tiny cairn on a construction site. I figured a proper funeral was a fitting way to go for something that had died in our discard pile.
Watching its last small breaths, I was reminded of soap bubbles bursting in midflight--the way their rainbow sheen goes black and white just before they disappear.