I feel its frail heartbeat, the last few moments of its life, after I hit it with my car. I couldn’t swerve. There were more in line (at least one) and an old lady at the side of the road. I didn’t stop. It was a juvenile bird, a little bird, one of a line. Did she scoop it off the road with a shovel? Like I do when I find hit foxes? I can’t leave them to be flattened beyond recognition. They are foxes for God’s sake, and beautiful.

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The quail’s heart wakes me up each morning at three. It is beating against my ribs like the wings of a monarch strong and ready to be released, then I realize for a quail the beat is weak. I can’t sleep with the gentle racket going on in there. I try to soothe it, anointing myself with a salve made from comfrey, nettles, and calendula; rub it in wherever I feel that beating close to the surface.

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I put the quail to sleep with Xanax. I know it’s temporary. I’ll wait all day for it to wake up. It’s such a tiny thing, the quail’s heart, and it was only a tiny amount, but I am afraid of getting the quail addicted. I don’t need a quail junkie living in my chest. I am still waiting for my own heart to start beating again; it’s hiding under the sleeping quail. I have always felt the soul of dead animals when I drive over their carcasses, whether I’m the one who killed them or not. This is the first time one ever attached itself to me.

Bio: Melanie Dunbar