frog pond. Everyone from the work crew was already there, except the eight of us crammed in a hatchback hybrid SUV, weighing the box down so that it dragged the hitch hard on the train tracks in crossing. We winced and bounced and winced, wound around one another with limbs temporarily dying, pinched in places. We found ourselves standing naked, shy, awkward jokes, waiting in line for the slimed stairs descending into the hot water bearing minerals, the natural spring full of blessed lithium, and friends who brought booze. He drank Captain Morgan all the way back, hiccupping and holding his head, averting his gaze. He hadn't said anything about the birds all day. He didn't say anything about them that night. He hadn't said anything at all. He couldn't walk straight or without stumbling, so I supported his lank figure over one shoulder and we walked that way, four legs stepping out of line. I put him to sleep. And then I gathered the box, donned his coat so that some part of him would be
present, brought them to the burn barrel, and sat apart from the rest, rolling cigarettes and smoking them, drinking sometimes when the bottle came by. Paije took a block from the fuel pile and wrote "Bee's Baby" on it, making sure I saw what she was doing, trying to get me to edge closer and tell her my secret. I saw the secret she showed me that wasn't hers to share, was not her loss, was not her child, or her sadness to bear. I took five blocks and wrote: Lindie, JJ, Amelia, Willie, Orville. The fire burned brighter, rose higher, threw sparks, shadows as I threw the blocks in, everything to ashes, always there is dust. My fingers were black with soot as I pulled back from the flames, having laid the box on top of the name-emblazoned wood blocks that burned hot to bear away the smoke of clay nests. I sat, watching the cardboard box slowly peel away and turn different colors of the sparrow's last sunset. Then the straw and feathers of the nest caught, and at the end, there were five tiny imprints left behind on the daubed clay shaped like beaks. 7