HUNDREDS #10/100: Goldfinch

Joanna’s headstone is only weeks old but already weatherworn. 

I kneel to brush cobwebs from the engraved letters: Our Beloved Daughter.

A bird alights on a naked branch above my head, warbling. 

A goldfinch… Joanna’s favorite bird.

‘Goldfinches sing the sweetest songs,’ she’d always say.

It stares at me and chirps.

“Joanna..?” I murmur.

I see her face. 

Smell her hair.

My lip bleeds between clenched teeth. 

No. She is gone. Forever gone.

I grab a stone and hurl it at the imposter.

Feathers burst in an explosion of yellow and black and the goldfinch falls dead onto Joanna’s grave.