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Poetry for mojo 9

Sean Shearer – Cloud Graveyard

After a bird dies its family doesn’t eat worms.
                            Instead, they fill their beaks with water from a blue lake
or stream, and if there aren’t bodies of water close by,
                                                            they scavenge the gutters of houses,

               and if there aren’t houses they nibble on grass or sticks
                                             to wet their tongues. The water’s important

                            and the birds can’t swallow any of it.
At sunrise they lift the limp bird miles above
                                             a particular large cloud. When the air thins

                            the family opens their mouths, spilling the water
               from their beaks, and releases the dead bird.

The falling water forms a cloud the size of a child’s shoebox,
                                             and inside that shoebox the bird rests,
                            where it sinks into the large cloud.

               This is where clouds come from.
                                                            This is how they float.