Thomas Lux

He was a dingy, bush- and ground-
hopper, gray-brown,
head so tiny it seemed he had none.
In hard winters, they're the only birds you see;
wings too stubby to flap south.
They gain a climate coat and bear it.
They live off the seeds of weeds.
They are savage birds and harm no one,
which is why I nodded to him
(he seemed to be nodding to me)
as I lifted my 16 gauge
to where he perched on a branch
and gave him both barrels about four inches
from his chest, if you could call it a chest.
He was there, then vapor.
All but his feet and an inch of orange legs,
each capped with a bead of blood.
His little talons held the branch until a breeze
knocked them over, but not off,
where they hung and swung back and forth
like the swing's chains on a playground
seconds after a child has left it for the slide
or, best of all, the monkey bars.