Dedication

by Jared Povanda

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Bird paints flowers on the walls of what would have been his daughter’s bedroom. Red roses with buttercream centers. Blue tulips with silver leaves. Hundreds, a whole field.

He paints a cerulean sky and curlicue bees.

He paints the sun, and his therapist calls it progress.

Night after night, a small brush trembles between fatigued feathers. When the lightbulb in his lamp dies, it makes the same futile snicking sound his daughter’s beak made against the side of her shell. Tonight, he paints in the dark.

Hundreds, a whole field. One petal at a time