Aviary

https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Anna_Loughran_Aviary-_final.wav

 

Milling about before the clinic
opened for a routine blood test,
I walked through a flurry of parakeets,
ducking as they swooped to feed
on blueberries & sunflower seeds,
& thought of when I snuck round
to unlock a neighbour’s shed door,
having heard exotic birdsongs
for weeks on end, only to be showered
in feathers & pierced by squawks,
& how I gawked like a collector
fascinated by nametags, descriptors
& dashes of cobalt …

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It was now when it happened | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

It was now when it happened

Editorial Note: This poem twins a Māori legend of the pīwakawaka (New Zealand fantail) with an Irish myth concerning Diarmuid (son of Donn), and …