By Amanda Irene Rush

One Sunday evening
my sister blue-calls
asking if she can drive
out to have me dig
a dead bird out
of the grille of her car.

Once, we spoke
every day, then never,
then occasionally. Now,
only when.

If she were a cat,
which at times she seems, a cat
you can only rub
a certain way, a way I cannot
seem to learn, I would know
this trapped
dead bird
is an offering,
a gift.

And so, I say yes, ready
to wait however long it takes,
because that is something,
the only thing, I know
how to do.

---

Amanda Irene Rush is a writer in central Ohio. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Ashland University and supports her creative pursuits with a small, solo psychiatric nursing practice.