The Summer of Dead Birds

by Ali Liebegott

  a quick scrape of nails on sidewalk

  C’mon old lady, pick those back legs up

  fear in my voice as I say it

  after weeks of walking in circles around the neighborhood

  it’s come to me we’re training

  the weight of my grief equal to the food we’ll stuff in

  our packs

  say farewell to the flattened pigeon

  put your paw on my thigh while I drive

  I’ll blow the cigarette smoke away from your face

  come, despite that it’s summer and your back legs are weak

  we’ll go all the way to the cliff edge

  I promise to stay close, my hands on your hips to steady you

  let’s go to a cave big enough to dump this sorrow

  Part Three

  The Summer of Dead Birds

  I.

  it’s the end of May and the sky is filled

  with birds being little whores

  dipping and weaving across the freeway

  following each other recklessly

  out of the bushes and into oncoming traffic

  this is the kind of courtship I understand

  one lover throwing themself in front of a car

  every four seconds in order to seduce the other

  every time a bird nearly misses my windshield, I gasp

  after the fourth bird I give up worrying,

  light a cigarette, and propose a toast

  Here’s to being little whores, I say

  II.

  once a bird dipped right into the path of a burgundy sedan

  an explosion of gray feathers

  a few minutes later the driver pulled onto the shoulder

  and sat stunned behind the wheel while his hazards blinked

  I think of that bird a lot

  and the stunned driver

  thank god, I’ve never hit an animal

  my uncle has totaled car after car

  running over a plethora of deer

  it’s so dark on those country roads

  and the deer come out of nowhere

  III.

  remember when we were little whores

  weeks into our love affair on women’s land?

  I was hallucinating because I’d abruptly quit drinking

  you were taking hooker baths in the tent

  in between, we were fucking like nobody’s business

  the month I met you I was starting a new life

  trying to put something down

  without picking something else up

  as much as possible I pretended

  there weren’t objects floating around me

  I crawled around a field with my sketchbook

  trying to capture the poses of a hundred dying bees

  I thought they were tame, friendly even

  because they didn’t fly away when I came near

  later I found out bees tiptoe delicately around right before

  they die

  I drew portrait after portrait of their hairy legs and

  thick yellow sweaters

  this was in the beginning when we still wanted to give

  each other everything

  IV.

  we both love dying things more than we let on

  and we let on quite a bit

  if it’s true we’re dead, I won’t know how to love this

  every wreckage, the beginning of something else

  Look at us beginning, says the tiny pulsating water bubble

  Hi, nice to meet you, I’m the loam that grew a heart

  V.

  when I figured out you were cheating on me

  I told my therapist, Thank god I’m not a violent person

  she looked at me astounded

  my body full of self-inflicted wounds

  I was a dumb dog, drugged and waking from anesthesia

  walking into walls, half-dead, trying to wag

  the deep-orange bile came years later

  I didn’t even know it was inside me when I heaved it onto

  the rug

  VI.

  I’d been shooting at the wrong target for months

  you were in your bedroom across the hall

  talking to your trick or writing her letters

  our apartment was big and cheap

  we both had a bedroom to hide in

  in mine, I began a portrait of myself

  pushing an oil pastel hard into the closet mirror

  outlining my sunken eyes and worried brow

  I kept correcting my eyes, making them sadder and sadder

  then I gave myself a stick body and got a hammer

  VII.

  I wanted to swing the hammer harder

  than I’ve ever swung anything

  for the head to go through my head drawn on the

  mirrored door

  but I was afraid to make too much noise and wake

  the neighbors

  really I was afraid to lose my shit

  I tapped the hammer lightly onto my face and the mirror

  shattered

  it broke because it was cheap, not because I broke it

  VIII.

  it was maybe midnight

  when my impotent shatter made you knock

  What’s going on? you said

  I’d been asking the same question for months

  I opened the door slightly as if you were a solicitor

  the heavy hammer hid behind my back

  pulling on the tendons in my shoulder

  I could see you were worried

  until now I’d swallowed every bit of fear and left you

  out of it

  but now part of my blue pastel eyelids lay on the floor

  at my feet

  IX.

  nobody’s perfect

  I did my share of lying, too

  it’s impossible to know in the lying moment

  which lies we’ll be unable to recover from

  X.

  things do just disappear all the time

  people and dogs and children

  your mother went fast

  then us

  poof

  my bags were packed

  no way to know whose shoddy limbs

  will crumble off the torso first

  XI.

  imagining Rorschach gone is like imagining the earth gone

  I know each is slowly going but to imagine it

  the scientists have shown us graphs of the hole-filled sky

  disappearing bees and birds plucked from oil slicks

  there are new kinds of scientists now like ER surgeons

  sent to coax polar bears off broken ice floats

  and take pictures of islands made of plastic bags

  we’re running out of room for our trash

  but we’re still here with our skin intact

  the barge of garbage far enough away

  enough of the bees’ work already done

  XII.

  The dog will start closing up shop, my coworker said

  They stop eating and drinking and wagging

  I do things on purpose to make Rorschach wag

  now that she’s almost blind with an arthritic spine

  every day I bribe her to keep the shop open

  I greet her dramatically with wide arms

  stop at each hamburger stand

  carry her up the stairs she’s fallen down

  she’s a foot behind, stiff legged in the crosswalk

  an old dog stopping traffic

  I walk backward in front of her

  trying to coax her all the way across

  XIII.

  I’m typing this with my hand on Rorschach’s thigh

  she’s running in her dream

  the irony is she’s so old she can barely walk

  I watch her legs move in sequence

  tiny flips of her calloused paws

  a quiver of her pink, spotted lips as she barks

&n
bsp; everything is spotted on a Dalmatian

  not just the fur

  the roof of the mouth, the inside of the lips and ears

  XIV.

  you think a dog is old until it gets even older

  her gaunt back hips, the lumpy body getting lumpier

  Rorschach sleeps on the bed with me

  coughing through the night

  her throat a road in winter, impossible to clear

  I follow her around with a tissue to wipe her running nose

  before she jumps off the bed

  she pauses afraid not able to see

  I say, Come on, Rorschach, you can do it

  or I lift her with my bad back

  XV.

  Rorschach’s sweater is amazing

  a gray-and-lavender argyle turtleneck

  she looks like a scholar

  without it she shivers

  the other night when I took it off to wash it

  her hips looked so thin

  XVI.

  Rorschach’s senile now

  sometimes when I hug her she tries to bite me

  she sleeps all day with her fading hips

  her old dog lip curled back

  I put my hand under her belly or leg or paw

  the heat of her dog body against me

  when she’s gone I can only imagine it

  as the sadness of wanting a tangible god

  Part Four

  The Official Center of the World

  I.

  in a few days it will be Rorschach’s thirteenth birthday

  today she had pre-birthday pizza and pre-birthday French fries

  it’s her new habit to press her paw into my thigh while I drive

  my new habit is to touch her ears as much as possible

  I don’t ever want to forget how they feel

  I push my nose into the fur at the top of her collar

  try and memorize her smell

  I do it again and again until she growls at me

  it’s difficult to smell her neck, dodge being bit,

  and the whole time not crash the car

  would it be fucked up

  to get Rorschach’s ears taxidermied after she dies?

  what do people normally do with their dead pets’ ears?

  I want to have something to hold

  during moments of great despair when she’s gone

  during moments of great despair now

  I hold her until she tries to bite me

  and then in a few hours I try again

  her taxidermied ears could be like handkerchiefs

  if I promised not to wring them would it still be fucked up?

  II.

  what if you leave knowing there’s nothing where you’re going?

  but you go anyway, you need the going

  the hand out the window, the red rocks, all that

  the hot wind blowing in the window, the back of your T-shirt

  stuck to the seat, wet with sweat

  you need to find a humble beaten god

  like a bad petting-zoo goat

  always shooed for gnawing the wall

  a god like a bar buddy

  with a flawed and sloppy past

  knuckles fucked from punching walls

  finding this god is dire, the same way it’s dire

  to sit next to the right person in the breakroom

  after a friend’s suicide

  a god who’d never say anything stupid

  who’d understand how a person could climb

  the bleachers of a football stadium and jump

  how this complex sorrow, holds inside it

  the possibility of all our climbing legs

  III.

  people say anything to the ones they love

  they say, I’d give you my kidney

  I’d bury you with my own hands

  I’d do anything, god forbid, that day comes

  in the last days of your mom’s life

  we begged you to let us take care of her for a few hours

  while you got a massage

  you’d been by her side nonstop for months

  your back knotted from leaning over her hospital bed

  you agreed, but only if I promised to keep her company

  while you were gone, to talk to her, she could still hear

  even though she was no longer talking

  terrified, I examined her face while she slept

  her eyelids closed heavily from the drugs

  I was thankful every time she took a breath

  I forced myself to take her hand

  I’ll take good care of your daughter, I said

  when I said it she grunted so loudly it scared me

  I couldn’t tell if it was gratitude, a threat, or a plea

  it shook me but when you came home

  I didn’t tell you about her grunting or my promises

  I don’t know why

  did she know I’d only be able to keep my promise for a year?

  IV.

  out the car window

  are snapshots from my marriage

  my marriage

  drowned, resuscitated, drowned

  the final fall, haphazard

  a slip on the sidewalk, a cracked skull

  then we were facedown and drowning

  in the tiniest puddle of our own blood

  I’m spreading my fingers as wide as I can to let the air

  rush through

  Rorschach’s hips are warm from the sun coming in

  she’s sleeping a deep, old-dog sleep

  lip curled back on the seat

  a bump in the road wakes her and she opens her eyes

  V.

  everything wasn’t always heavy

  once I called you from a pay phone

  and asked you what you were doing

  in your sweetest voice you told me

  you were feeding honey to a dying bee

  it could hardly walk, tiptoeing slowly

  along the edge of the saucer

  after an hour, it had the strength to fly away

  VI.

  I want to choose the cancers in my book

  the breakups, the deaths, and the impending deaths

  it’s summer and Rorschach’s wearing a fur coat

  I’m taking her on a road trip for her birthday

  I promise this is the last trip, I say to her panting head

  it’s clear I’m the only one looking for an earlier self

  VII.

  I hate the idea of not knowing your dog is sick

  you think the dog has pulled a muscle

  and that’s why it’s suddenly limping

  or you think the dog is just a little sleepy

  dogs can’t mumble in bed in their sweaty pajamas

  next to a nightstand covered in half-eaten puddings

  I hate that dogs can’t say a slow, measured goodbye

  VIII.

  Felicity, California: The Official Center of the World

  Population: 3

  I wish there were trees but we’re in the desert

  just trains and rocks and occasional signposts

  this is what I wanted, right?

  hundreds of miles to pull my dead marriage from me

  and leave it fluttering in the road behind

  The Center of the World is currently closed

  and open by appointment only

  Please call for an appointment to visit the Center of the World

  or the Center of the World Gift Shop