Issue 10.1 Fall 2014

issue 10.1 cover image

 

 

If I were a bird, but like a cool one

 

Peter Zahparti

 

 

I am drifting away twenty stories up
in a nest of polyester and wool and sticks,
which is
situated in the far corner of my home,
Box;


I look out a hole in the wall.
This hole (about a 7x10 foot rectangle, not a circle)
seems to be my only escape from this tower full
of bird seed.


I can't fit:


I can fit my head through and that is all.


(There are many birdhouses
stacked on top of
each other
here.
It often feels like you're choking on musk.
It permeates your soul.


It pushes down your throat
like a magician stuffs a rabbit
back into his hat after the trick is
over and the audience is fooled.


The rabbit isn't amused:
He knows the trick well.)
Sometimes I see other birds.
Sometimes I see they're trying to get out too.
But they can't fit either.
So I look at them
through the sheet of ice.


they look back.

 

 

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