Mirror Test

Ben saw results of the first: a woodpecker corpse

in a tuft of grass he would have mowed down

but for his eye for things unseen (and perhaps just

a trace of remorse for mowing so close to the guinea pig

cage some summers before—the roar, not the blade,

put an end to that pet). So Ben stopped this roar

and planned for its grave. Meanwhile, while pruning

the roses a stone’s throw away, I spied results of the second:

woody’s twin sister (or brother—the head too young

to be red); I called out for Ben to double the plot.

He’d already gone to wash up for lunch, and no one

discussed the deaths in our yard. I chalked it all

up to an orphaned nest, fledglings too young to fly,

sufficiently fed for the days they had grown, their mama,

not anywhere known, leaving the rest to fend for own.

Imagine instinct-less leaps, where hunger may

trump teen-age dreams taking world by its tail, and

somewhere is mama, a worm, or a prayer. One fell as far as

the tuft in the shade of the tree; the other to roses, a

flight in its own fragranced right, nose-divingly.

Results of the third, after lunch, caused concern: how

many birds would be killed off today? This one lay

beside the thick trunk, the spot Ben had chosen to dig

the mass grave… My wife blamed the magpies that ravage

our yard, chortling riff lines like Jimmy Page, Radioactive

with actual rage. Be smart in a dog-eat-dog world

and make any upstart go down—so the magpies believe.

To think we play host to Bonnie and Clyde, staking their claim

in our bonny backyard with results of a fourth: one of us!

Toss out a mirror—they can see self—and reflect.