The Forever Bird

When you and I were children we wondered

what it would be like to burn

someone at the stake. We gathered

the makings of a good fire and drove

a broom handle into the rotting

sweetness of the woods at the bottom

of our street, where we went

almost every day to bury

little boys' treasure, catch a monarch

or carve acorns into faces

that talked back to us

in a language only we could hear.

On the way to find the new kid

I realized what would happen

if we went ahead with it.

I had left you with hard candy

and a wooden match, listening to the clear

endless song of a bird we called

the forever bird, invisible

in the high branches of the highest tree.

You sat, drawing in the dirt with a twig,

until a thrashing in the leaves scared you

all the way up the street, where you found me

at the attic window, on the lookout for smoke

rising through the treetops, imagining

you giving up on me and burning

the orange cat that followed us

to our hiding place. Your face was blue;

your lips, purple. In a few weeks,

your operation would go awry. In my dream

a forearm pushes up like a weed

through your front yard, the fist

opening into a blanket, which I peel back

to reveal your old man's face

whistling the forever song. Then your mother,

coming across the lawn, tells me

you're on the roof with a fever-

Come back tomorrow.