Always the sense of negation, of winnowing those bits you once were.

 The male grackle struts and displays his tail feathers.

 Everything slanting toward null, even the treetops.

 Your eleven shadows still point to the noontime sun.

 The female’s smaller body lacks blue overtones.

 A misread signal, the unheeded warning, ignored pain.

 The image I possess magnifies with age, observing protocol.

 Addition by loss. Deduction by gain. Therapeutic induction.

 An annoyance or plague, their song grows harsher with time.

 Counting beaks, adding wings, subtracting heartbeats.

 Which total only for the living.