The Starling

When I was small the starlings roosted one by one on grandma’s party line wire (like jittery black clothespins) to bandy their gossip back and forth until the wire hummed with their inanities. By luck my slingshot found its mark. One toppled from the wire soundlessly like a clothespin blown loose in the wind. The others rattled on, oblivious, no questions asked. It dropped straight down. I ran to see where it had fallen (headlong into the trash) expecting it to be stunned only and I would laugh as it flew off. There, between a flattened can of Campbell soup and a Brillo pad used up, and bleeding from one empty eye the still warm bundle of feathers looked ready for flight. (so fly!) But when it did not spread its wings or chatter any more I cradled death in my hands (soft and almost weightless) and cried as I buried both victim and weapon in the same box.