WINNING WORDS: To the Audubon Society

 

Put shit in your eye, right so
I’d like to stuff ’em;
sate my gypsy gullet. 
But bird’s brains are featherweight,
better plied as dusters to 
chase the dint of memory from Ma’s whatnots. 

They’re all right, when not dungin’ in your eye,
on 
cool shirts, parked cars freshly polished.

I like them, then.

Raise my lazy periscope eyes, 
dingy camo binocs,
toward the wayward sky.

Greatest place to be a bird:
up in the air,
defying gravity,
wicked! 
If I had wings like a turbot, 
A super-sized turbot,
I’d be a kiss-me-ass angel
Marvel fiend,
cos I’m not playing hero 
with two wings, two feet…
a finite heartbeat.

I’m a born fowl.
My poaching bill, 
the annelid (a fresh, fat incher) dreads.
I’ll fork.
I fork. 
Beak-breaking work, 
the bird’s bashful grub burrowing 
—pit to pit—into final darkness.

Mark my will as a wily food source.

Doubt that I’ll fly today anywhere
with two right knees, clean elbows, seamless palms,
some spotless face.

Sincerely,
Flightless