Battle at the Birdfeeder
Blue jays are bastards,
deceptive in their coat of contrasts, the
first
to be admired by those who have spent
less
time observing their terrorist tactics.
But I’m on to them. I know their tricks:
steer
the cardinals away from the corn,
pretend
the suet tastes better, then dive
bomb. Strength does not come in
numbers.
They hate indiscriminately. They are not
working
as a team, but by lunch, ten cardinals
are losing to half as
many jays.
Red blends with the remaining dead
leaves so that the cardinals look like
decorations,
poised in defeat, waiting for
leftovers.
April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania and is working
on her first (several) poetry collections and an autobiographical work on
raising a child with Autsim. Her work has appeared in Poetry Salzburg,
Pyrokinection, Convergence, Ascent Aspiration, Deadsnakes, The Rainbow Rose and other
online and print
journals and is forthcoming in Inclement, Poetry Quarterly and
Bluestem.
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