you expect me to believe
I ask myself, can three birds in a box
survive months of dystopia?
and it becomes all I can think about,
the only question in my life.
Three green birds with the power
to feel evil approaching as if
it's a soft breeze and chime, chime.
It's here, here it is. Run
if you please, but let us fucking fly
first. Of course, what good is an omen
if one responds with mild fretting,
quick shrill acknowledgment
and moving on? Such a person
doesn't deserve magic birds.
Three small green birds with magic
zipping along under ruffled feathers,
crammed in a too small box, white
water rafting, crashing, clutched
close to chest, submerged. Now on
the rocks, now on shore. Birds
do not swim, but they fly,
or want to. Birds live through
little, or so you tell me when
I once suggest we get birds.
They die over nothing, you say.
All cozy in their cages
in a house, they drop dead
and you never find out why,
they go stiff overnight
when all you did was blink
or let a scented candle burn too long.
No, that's not the pet for us.
We're always looking for reasons:
why the bad thing happened,
why the good thing happened.
Three sturdy birds outlast countless
humans, like they don't realize
how fragile they are,
and then are released
to fend for themselves outside
their familiar dark prison.
Even if it's possible
they could have made it all this time,
will they make it now? Will they
sixth sense through this shock too,
those soft green birds lost to the trees?
Lauren Bender lives in Burlington, VT. Her work has appeared in IDK Magazine, The Collapsar, Gyroscope Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Yes Poetry, and others. You can find her on twitter @benderpoet.