Evidence

My heart pumps its last, box lid lowered.
After spades clang and dirt clods thud,
My true self is clear. I am a feather.

Charged top to bottom, I sense new parts.
No head. Instead, a tip suffused with light,
delicate, alive, an upturned heart.

My jellied human spine becomes a rachis,
a hard hollow shaft. It can survive the snap
from an alligator’s jaws.

I wriggle every barbed protrusion,
a sweeping contour of parallel vanes
like a beaded curtain before a door,

No torn ligaments or jarring joints.
Each silver strand fits the other,
plumulaceous fluff of magic flight.

The vanes align down the rachis until
a downy barb wraps up the quill,
long fingernail dipped into ink.

After an investigation, the inevitable
exhumation. A search for what killed me.
And who.

For a clue, hold me in the lightest
breeze. I flutter to the killer’s cap,
then watch me soar over bay and shore.