Throwback Thursday: ‘Birdhouse’ by David Clink

Your love of the land
keeps me close to it.
 
Your voice from the backseat:
Not here …  Keep going …  I don’t like it …
 
The streets empty under dangerous skies,
I find a home in a remote part
 
of the suburbs with a pond in the back,
a large, gray birdhouse, the grass deep.
 
I like birdhouses, you say,
See if there is any birdfeed around!
 
I place you gently on the patio
so you don’t tip over. There are no birds.
 
I break into a shed, find an old gas lawnmower.
I fill it up with gas, the smell of exhaust,
 
the loud, frightening sound it makes.
I cut the first row of lawn,
 
keeping an eye on the sky,
worried that something might hear it.
 
And I pour your ashes, mother, below
the birdhouse, with a view of the pond.