This morning 

before breakfast, I stepped 

on a small bird – 

Plump and brittle, like a delicate 

flesh-filled bulb,

trapped between my slipper, 

the floorboards, and a lumbering 

inertia, The rolling 

mass collapsed 

with a tiny shriek 

of cortisol, premature

burgundy flashes

and pneumatised 

    alien bone.

After daring 

to coddle broken softness

the few drips to the bin,

I 

shuddered 

when she came in 

from her shower,

did not squeam

but sat me down, and wiped

the still-warm 

muck

from my sole.

Later, twice recovered, 

             At the table 

already laid,         I scraped    

carelessness from cold toast

and picked 

                               at the c o n g e a l e d

under my fingernails,

s   p   a   t         

   imaginary  

    feathers

onto my plate, 

but could 

not

get rid

of the echo, 

as my accomplice

peeled dejection 

at our loss,

then offered me the other 

boiled egg – 

To which I acquiesced

and swallowed, half 

ignoring

the tell-tale pulse

of bad dreams

in my blood.

Jean Velasco is a writer, teacher, and translator from Naarm/Melbourne. Her work has appeared in Overland, Kill Your Darlings, Rabbit Poetry, Going Down Swinging, and the Black Inc. anthology, “Growing Up Queer in Australia”. She lives in Madrid, and can be found online @jean_sprout