I didn't know brown was the colour of grief

”Hope” is the thing with feathers 
                          ~Emily Dickinson 

Grief is the thing with feathers
                          ~Max Porter 

Worn down by years 
of pleading, my mother 
allowed, not a dog, not a cat– 
a parakeet; a scrap
of sunny sky entombed 

in amber plastic and steel.   
Discovering that suns 
and skies can also die 
of loneliness, we went back 
to the pet shop to find it

a companion. When both
riberry hearts gave out, 
inevitably, within days 
of each other, my mother 
mourned them like children. 

We nestled them inside
a shoe box, browned 
with age, a fragile bed
of leaves beneath them. 
At the local park, sombre

and spadeless, we clawed 
in silence at the rusty soil
with ancient soup spoons 
that bent out of shape 
with every strike. My mother 

swiped loose, chestnut curls 
from her face, limp and moist 
as peeled lychee, a smudge 
of earthy rouge bringing out 
the dark of her eyes.