Bird Book

He came into my bedroom and called me Midas, running his fingers across the gold-leafed finials of my bedposts.

A circle. A slow, quiet inventory. The sense that I was somehow being measured and weighed.

He sank into lotus by the bookcase, my childhood first edition Burgess in his hands.

Exhale.

For the first time, but certainly not the last, I considered how much I would like to have him in my bedroom under different circumstances.

Even if I could go back to that moment in time and un-think that thought, nothing would change.

But I would still like to have it back.