There is a dead bird on our deck.

I don't let baby see. It crashed into her window the day before with that surprising and yet familiar thump, but I had forgotten to look around for it. It's either a warbler or a hairy woodpecker: black beak, black eyes and black feathers with white specks. After I put Amelia to nap, I step out onto the porch, gently, as if I might startle it alive. Its insides have been cleaned out by insects. Two black flies buzz off when I take a stick and a metal bowl's edge to the fragile bird body. It shows me its smooth red gut, which looks like a halved peach after its prickly pit has been plucked from its flesh. It's beak is sharp and still, pointing down to the planks of wood beneath it as if he is averting his eyes, afraid to see that his heart is missing. After his body flies for the last time, limply landing among the dead brown leaves in the mouth of the woods, fuzzy gray feathers stick to my bowl, which I then carry inside to soak in soap and water.