i am an alchemist of dead birds

they go to die on my windowsill
singing radio songs. static.
a crow. a cardinal. a blue jay. a hawk. 
this began the first time
i cradled a dead bird in my hands.
no one cares about dead birds. 
their bodies get absorbed into the asphalt 
& into the grass of parking lots.
when you care about a dead thing
it becomes just a little bit alive again.
what i really want 
is to ressurct them. i want to speak to the birds
so clearly they have to wake up. 
when i was small, 
i would try to wake up dead birds until 
the sunset came peaching above & it was time
to return home. in bed, i became a dead bird.
i felt all my bones. i splayed out. 
i came back to the same dead birds each day 
until their bodies melted away & then their bones.
right now, i can make a dead bird into 
a pocket watch, a pair of opera glasses,
or a compass. though, the compass
never points in one direction.
i am trying to broaden my craft
to other dead animals. there is 
a dead mouse somewhere in my apartment
but it is not responding to me when i whisper to it. 
one day i want to turn a raven
into a deep black umbrella. then maybe
a blue jay into a bow tie. there are
so many dead birds when you start looking for them.
then, they start looking for you.
i guess you could say i'm also
an undertaker of birds. everywhere
is a bird cemetry. i often wonder
if birds die in mid air & just plummet 
to earth or if they have an instinct 
that instructs them to land.
on the sidewalk once i found
only a wing without a bird. 
i searched for the rest of the body
& found none. the wing still had feathers
even though they were ragged & thin.
fried chicken bones count as 
a dead bird. who else is going
to show them into their afterlives?
god doesn't care about birds 
so we have to. i am up late
practicing bird calls from recordings i find
on Youtube. i am laying down
another pocket watch. a single wing
is beating without the other 
somewhere in the haunted night.