On the last, icy, breaths of December 2012,
I found a wounded sparrow,
who had mistaken glass for freedom.
The tiny neck was askew,
but the heart still fluttered against my palm.
I thought, for a moment, of ending his misery,
but the idea of bludgeoning the fragile skull,
or twisting the brittle neck,
turned my stomach sour.

I brought him home in a kleenex nest,
moved him to a basked of pine, lined with rags.
Tried to coax a few seeds and drops of water
into the tiny beak,
but to little avail.
He died new years eve, with the last breath of the old year,
and I buried the stiff body
in the garden with the dead rose bushes.

Had I, like the ancient greeks, believed in bird signs
I might have taken it as an ill omen,
run screaming to the oracle,
demanding what misfortune was to befall me,
with the first gasp of January.
But, like Achilles, I put more stock in my own two hands
than the silver-plated fingertips of Olympians.

And with that first cry of the new year,
came fates I could not have imagined,
no matter how many feathers and fates I followed.
Misfortune, of course, made her customary visit,
and stayed longer than expected.
But Joy did not shun my door,
and, by good fortune, stayed longer than her bitter sister.