The man works quickly, repairs the blue-jay’s wing, ties three knots with blue thread.
He remembers pulling weeds, killing spiders. He is now happy for any living thing.
Lying on the living room floor, he imagines stars overhead and leaves falling curled like paper catching fire, imagines multiple pairs of steps scattering the hunched leaves, multiple sticks sharpened for roasting marsh mellows.
He remembers singing nude under a chandelier of running water and robed with a choir, voices a scaffold to the nave, the ceiling vaulted inside his mouth.
When he walks to the lake for water, algae covers its surface like clouds. He assigns identities— sea horse, beard, wheelbarrow.
He holds the pan level on his way back to the house, avoids open fields, though he has seen no one.
He ties a flashlight over the card table, inverts the lid of a sugar bowl, adds water with a tattooed spoon. The blue jay rests like a scar on his open hand.