Yesterday the blackbird

Valentine's day,
all hearts a-throbbing
I went back to clear the last debris
of years of living on a dream
in her house, the one I built for us.

I didn't mean to kill
it happened sooner than the wish
I saw him come, unlucky bastard
but first I saw the hen
taildipping..teasing
avoiding but seemlingly
wanting to be caught,
willing but heaven knows what
she dashed across the road on foot
a cutthroat action on the motorway.

The dumb male, wings a-hanging
followed suit, head drooping, eyes riveted
at dipping tail, hormones high,
blind, in total passion fixed.

She made it just
he 'bit the dust',
tyres shrieked, tarmac scorched,
I tried, I did, I swear I did,
a fluttering of feathers
and he was mauled and done.

Dead silence,
the driver blanched a bit
and paused,
the blackbird hen sat
staring at him on a branch
then preened her feathers
ready for another chase.

She looked as if my green Mercedes
was a godsend for her
another unsuitable suitor gone
and her bid for progeny secured
for the one she really wanted all along.

Was her seeming frantic dash
a calculated move, a finely laid out plan
a brilliant way to let
another kill that silly male?
And all she needs to do
is wipe the guilty smile away
and fly again.
Secured herself a better spouse
that murderous, quite risky way
and knows so well that even if tonight
a treetop has no chansonnier,
another will be there tomorrow.

A decade later that eerie Valentine's card
still bothers me a bit
and makes the corners of my mouth go hard.
I wonder if that clump
of bloodied feathers wasn't really
somehow me.

Yesterday the blackbird
today and then and now forever I?