The Quaint Hornbill House Story

A friend of mine once shot a dove.

Its spouse, instead of fleeing,

perched itself near the dead one.

What a cry it was!

I often compare it to paeans

offered to remind the gods:

They needed to take care of us.

Adam picked it up, and like Dra Abu el-Naga,

ventured to mount a series.

The skeleton and musculature stayed under

its plumage, freeze dried for posterity.

Taxis, he said, arrangement of the aligned souls

Dermis, for skin, and memorializing feeling.

If he looked at me when he uttered, he’d know:

There are other methods to record breach.

The dove in the middle of his home, like art, or sculpture,

Like something threatened, retrieved.

Not so easy! The cries of its mate

beneath its skin, layer upon layer upon layer,

of curses and griefs,

shrinking, warping, wrinkling Adam’s life,

like it’d never been.

If you ever been to the Hornbill House,

may you climb the museum stairs, take the left,

peruse the Siamese twin squirrels,

mounted and dressed in Victorian gowns

partaking in a game of croquet.

I bet you’d see Adam next,

hung upon cotton-wrapped wires

with sewn-on cured skin.

Just about staring at you

in a life-like pose.