The Birdbath Poem by Amberlee Carter

It’s empty now-
though not if you consider
that absence can fill a vessel.
The rains have not come for weeks, love—
the birds are dying,
one by one of suffication
like the mind does,
day after day of exhaustion.

And yet the sparrows sing,
only now it’s funeral hymns—
and my heart I suppose
is full of useless nonsense:
love and all his facial expressions.

Today I will write a eulogy for the birds
and dedicate it to my addiction-
but the words, the words beat themselves
against the sides of my skull,
like frantic birds, caught inside a bell.