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Stephen Devereux

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Bird in the Chimney

Stephen Devereux reading Bird in the Chimney 1429.4 KB
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One howling night the kids had heard
Its flapping through the ventilator grille
And screamed – not for mercy for the trapped bird
But at the thought of beak and claw and feather
In the room. We had no means to get it out
So moved them all downstairs and said it would
Fly out the way it came once we had gone.

It didn’t. For the next three days we heard
Its wild death struggle amplified
Through wall and chimney breast in every room.
No one slept. We kept to the garden or went
To the park in the day and spent each night
Listening for the next scratch or plaintive
Chirruping. It’s flown? It’s dead at last?
No, there it was again, coughing on soot.
I lay with them and covered up their ears.

And now that they have all grown up and gone
And the room they shared cleared of their things,
I strip the paper, scrape the skirting boards
That I might know that they would not be back.
That grille had rusted shut and fell away
When I kicked it. A pile of soot and dust
Spilled on the floor and at its centre,
Beak to the light, the desiccated bird
Flattened like the fossil of a dinosaur
Where it had sat and tried to breathe our air
And heard our callous voices come and go.

 

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