The Red Bird Watches
Her dance
in the backyard
stumbling like a drunk
past the lacquered posts
her clumsy hands
clutch a bottle of bubbles
she chases the small dog pass
the painting on our gray wall
stenciled, faded blue and pink
a sun-drenched Our Lady of Guadalupe
which was done by the previous owner
Lupita
below the painting’s feet, on the ground
is a large stone, flat
sometimes the small dog will scratch
at the stone or lay next to it and whine
but mostly he ignores it
the way I ignored the feeling
I should rush to see Betty
the morning before she died
or the way I ignored my family
when they were crying or the way
She ignores me when it’s time to put her shoes on
or the way the God of Painless Deaths
ignored Betty’s requests or the way
the God of Four More Months
ignored her wish to meet our little girl
but this all happened of course
before Betty turned into a red bird
but after I learned that grandmas
can have names like Betty
What did it feel like for Betty
to breathe YHWH out
for the last time and for her
to breathe YHWH in
for the first
although neither are Hebrew
The small dog ignores her dancing and bubbling
and scratches at the flat stone
perhaps unable to ignore the feeling
that his friend the soft, black rabbit
was buried there a year or more ago