December 2022
Bio Note: I’m a retired English Professor and live with my wife in Northern New Jersey. My poetry collections A Matter of Timing, Time is Not a River, and Morning Calm as well as a recently published chapbook, Jack Pays a Visit, are all available on Amazon.
Quote of the Month: “In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence.” ― Robert Lynd
Quote of the Month: “In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence.” ― Robert Lynd
Wings
In the raw egg of morning acoustics ripple like a falling lake. Birds in the backyard take turns eating at the feeder, mates call to each other with voices that could seduce machinery or a drop of rain. I try to speak to them, recite poetry, sigh, and whistle. I affect my grandmother’s accent use broken English, French phrases, pretend to be a statue: hold my arms out stiff to the side, close my eyes. Still we cannot communicate beyond the simple: hello, I’m hungry feed me, stay away, fly. Later, I fall asleep standing up, feel my knees bending the wrong way, vestiges of wings erupting from my back— Birds delight in impersonation, imitating each other’s sounds. Yet I wonder what do they dream when they see a man with wings?
Originally published in A Matter of Timing
©2022 Michael Minassian
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