With No Experience In Such Matters by Stephen Dunn
To hold a damaged sparrow under water until you feel it die is to know a small something about the mind; how, for example, it blames the cat for the original crime, how it wants praise for its better side.
And yet it's as human as pulling the plug on your Dad whose world has turned to feces and fog, human as-- Well, let's admit, it's a mild thing as human things go.
But I felt the one good wing flutter in my palm-- the smallest protest, if that's what it was, I ever felt or heard. Reminded me of how my eyelid has twitched, the need to account for it. Hard to believe no one notices.
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