Rebirth on the Side of the Road

a small, brown bird
freshly dead
on the side of the road
a stream of ants
busily disassembling
and carting off
its eyes
for recycling

it tires of the bird dance for now, and
ants
instead,
soon enough it’ll
caterpillar
or dragonfly
perhaps spider

each time translating
forgetting for the pure fun of it

it’ll undoubtedly
dirt
and tree
and fruit
it’ll people and worm
then fly again
as if for the first and only time
as a small, brown bird

by Kevin Stadt

Editor’s Note: Dust to dust? Not quite. Nouns used as verbs throw the reader off-kilter, even as death throes one into the inevitable cycle of molecular reuse (throws/throes…. I couldn’t resist. Forgive me.).