Museum Piece

Day 22 PAD Challenge. Prompt: "Only one in the world" poem.

only one, that's true, of him
rising and setting like the
sun, brilliant as the hilt
beyond the glass they both saw
that rainy November afternoon.

changing her feathers, fair to
fowl, to suit his naturalist's
eye, never-quite-achieving
the correct plumage so that
she, too, could be stuffed

and held for all time behind
glass, pretty picture-postcard,
buy it, for a pittance, before hitting the stones
of the street, rain slicked so,
so fast, fast, he drove, the

glove box thick-ticketed, pumpkin-orange, lean-jawed,
blue-eyed, whittling her down to size,

the ivory figure, ancient, knotty
talisman reclining in perpetuity on
the brocaded floral plains of historical
furnishings, neatly tagged,
catalogued in black and white