Dead Toucan

Down like the oval fall of a hammer
The great bill went,
Trailed by its feather-duster body
Splat on cement.
His mates fell out of countenance,
All listened, shivering in the sun,
For what was off, amiss:
In his pretend haven under a flame tree
The agouti crouched, chewed on his spittle, shook,
The porcupine rolled in his box, the parakeets
Chattered regrets,
Knowing something was wrong in their hot Eden:
That their King had followed his heavy fate to earth;
All these comrades understood
Their toucan was dead that day in Guadeloupe,
And his superb
Accomplishment,
His miracle of balance,
Had come to nothing, nothing. . . .
A beak with a panache
Chucked like an old shell back to the Caribbean.