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View from a Bathroom Window II

Ice has whitened the corrugated roofs
of the garages opposite.
The dead starling still hangs,
suspended by a thread
from the top of the hawthorn.

Every morning I look out and hope
it will be gone.
The crows have tried to pull it
away from whatever held it fast
until it died.

Will it still be there?
When spring covers the trees
in soft green leaves, a dead
dangling reminder of winter

This morning a magpie,
more determined than the rest,
more hungry, pulls and pulls
and the dead bird moves
to the top of the branch.

Yet still the magpie
cannot free it, cannot seize it
away. The top of the tree
is too high for me to reach.
I can only watch.

The carrion birds want
the starling as dead meat.
I’d like to give it a decent burial
We all are thwarted.
Let ice and wind do their work.