It was a stormy afternoon, and I was painting
when I heard the sound of a bird striking the window.

Like a huge cage,
the glass dome seals the house
on the third floor,
where my studio is.

People say that over the years, you get used to almost anything
when it repeats itself.

Year after year,
the dome drew the city’s native birds:

pigeons that crashed vigorously against it,
picazuros falling, dazed by the storm,
or blinded by the summer heat.

They fell.

As a part of the ecosystem of life and death,
I buried in the garden
the birds that fell and died.

It isn’t always sad.
Sometimes I expect it.
Other times, I wish I could tell you about it.

Camouflaged, they play at free love on the gray cement of my balconies,
while greedy red-back hawks stalk and wait for easy prey.

Winter gave way to summer,
and summer became winter again.

Your decomposed wings were fertile:
fertilizer, worms, food for other birds.

The breeze took care of the rest,
as if we had never existed.

And I kept painting bird cemeteries,
while I lived,
while I died.