first flight: your talons
in the grim grip of a teenager
belly filled with berries

dumped fast
in the back of an SUV,
long enough to find
a red brick nest

your guts quickly spilled
and you tossed in a black hole
for a long night with other avian creatures
black, big as pigs, smelly as well

at sunrise the hole rolled
but only long enough for it to be clutched
by a moaning monster, toppled upside down
the pigs sliding into its guts

but the wind rescued you!
gave you recycled flight, a full day
and night, until my wiper blade snagged
your white wings at 70 MPH

I could have dumped you
in the bin at the next rest stop
but you had a different vision
of redemption

instead, I dropped you on the road                        
where you would wait, without protest,  
for another gust