sitting at the downtown coffee shop
before walking to the river to work
there is a dead sparrow on the other side of giant glass window / facing West Main Street
beak down on the sidewalk

out the side of my left eye it sometimes
hops up to skitter away / but / nothing doing

the sparrow lies there as a well-fed business man in an eggplant-colored shirt
walking gingerly in shiny black shoes scoots by / wrinkling his face in disgust

it would not be a stretch to say I look well-fed but the insistence of the left eye / the
hip / shoulder / knee pain reminds me

some passersby would step out / scoot by
my corpse too.