Gulliver

In the middle of a 5th Avenue crosswalk I found this unfortunate pilgrim upside down and clawing the air. At three inches in length, he was hard to miss. I slid him onto my notebooks and sat with him nearby for a few minutes - it didn't look good, he had a puncture to his upper abdomen and was only moving his front legs. Nevertheless I found a box in a trashcan to bring him home to Brooklyn. I carried him like a pizza delivery - on the Subway I suddenly heard his wings going full speed and thought maybe a little rest was all he needed. Walking home from the train I passed by a copy of Gulliver's Travels someone had stood against their fence for the taking, and thought that seemed a fitting name for one so large (and helpless.)

Once home he came out of the box to flap his wings more and make a go of it but, because only his front wings were working, he just went around in circles. We put him back in the box for protection and let him be. A while later I peered in the box and saw he was pretty much dead but pulled him out for a closer look. Out in the open air again he moved, somehow raising his thorax up as high as he could. In this ascending gesture he became something like an anthemia to life and left me wondering if the spirit of victory and death do not exclude one another, wondering if death is beautiful in a way one can't imagine.