Today I gathered your bones
and what was left.
I am almost glad
you both went at once.
I hear sisterhood is strong
even in death.

Into the quick dug pit you go.
It is hardly deep enough for winter.
But it is August and if I am honest
there cannot be much of anything
left to salvage.
Those bandits already took
all the meat they could eat.

I toss in a cheap crystal.
It is not even charged,
not even blessed.
In goes those sea salt speckled chips
you both loved to peck.
I am sorry we do not have
any stale tortillas left.

My husband cries over this shallow pit.
He tells you to “rest easy” then fills it in.
The guilt seeps into our soles.
We left you out.
You should have been in.

Your feathers will be strewn about
for two more weeks or three.
A constant reminder of what a mess
it must have been.
The fight of your lives
and you did not even barely win.

Goddamn those peppered bandits
with hands so nimble they probably
seasoned you and let you sit.
Buttered up some ears of corn
and used your own eggs
to make a dredge.

They feasted on it all
before escaping into the night
with bellies full and swollen
full of my favorite,
semi-suburban birds.

Demi Wetzel’s work can be found or is forthcoming in Broad! Magazine, Face á Face Collective, Yes Poetry, The Laurel Review’s Fearsome Critters, and her chapbook—Life of the Party— was chosen as a 2017 Floating Bridge Press semi finalist. Demi lives and writes in London.

Photograph by Erik Stine.