*staraz

Common starling -- very common, plenty more where it came from, and those plenty more left this one behind when they boiled back up into the air as a black cloud and disappeared two days ago. He must have fallen into a vent and down the disused heating shaft. I can hear him fluttering on the other side of the tin plates screwed into the plaster.

Two days trying to figure out how to get to him. I peer into the wall with a light but see nothing, hear only feathers against masonry. Then this morning he flies out of the hole and into the bright glass window. I catch him when he lands on the only green thing in the room.

With my hand over his back and my fingers curled over his wings, I felt his heart speed into triple time and my own stop for a moment: Open beak. Black tongue. Glossy eye. Curved claw. Clenched foot. He will not release his grip on the stem. When I snip the leaf from the plant, he holds it just as tightly as before: Gray skin. Black eye. Get a window open.

He lets go when I do.