But here, in the syntax of simony, lies a songbird; silent and sleek
and sorrowful, sinful only in its silence. Hana carries an undressed
foot along the premaxilla, along the mandible; along
the craven wing, but does not move a threaded muscle.
"What have you found there?" Caravaggio, who has followed the imprints in the grass; Caravaggio, who has not yet finished laughing at himself. He stills those invisible thumbs. "Oh, a dove."
Hana leaves the bird, her heel now black, now red. "It was a songbird once," she murmurs, and Caravaggio agrees, because he was a thief; once.