Back Where You Belong

the squalling of birds
drowned out all other noise.
the ground was black
for miles…
covered with the live bodies
of thousands of sparrows.
psychopomps—
that’s what his professor
had called them—
harbingers of the dead.

the wind start to moan,
and those sparrows—
all 79,505 of them—
took to the air at once,
the beating of their wings
a steady drone and
the outlines of their bodies
darkening the sky,
blocking the noon sun,
turning day to night.

they crashed through the
east wall of the house,
flying straight for the
husk of the man,
lying on the floor.
they picked up the body,
still alive and now screaming,
by the loose puddles of
skin hanging from his limbs and
carried him back to hell.