They know before we do,
the birds. In the yard,
feeders swing on their chains.
If you think we don’t bury
our cash in the thaw
of the dark dicey frostbite,
you’re wrong. Trust God
or no one, I urge my husband.
Do not answer the door.
I pour vodka down his throat,
call through the cracks
to bring back the warblers.
Bird bird bird, where is your,
when will it, why why why.
What jumps faster
than blood from a vein?
If you think we don’t practice
the dash to the bunker,
you’re wrong. We’ve run out
of drugs and honey,
but we cannot run far,
railcars packed with
no more time. Before
the siren glass shatter,
we walked fine,
and the mistle thrush
spilled operettas
over the sunflowers.
The neighbors are hiding
their children in attics.
The absence of silvery
wings. Do it now,
begs my husband, break
the thermometer, inject me
with mercury, hollow
my bones before lark
and nightingale swallow
each other’s songs.
A former high-school English teacher, Jenny Hubbard writes full-time in her hometown of Salisbury, NC. Her work has been published over the years in various journals, including Hunger Mountain, Crab Orchard Review, Tar River Poetry, Nine Mile, Maryland Literary Review, and The Southern Poetry Anthology. Both of Jenny’s novels, And We Stay and Paper Covers Rock, have earned major awards from the American Library Association. Represented by Jonathan Lyons of Curtis Brown, Ltd., Jenny is currently under contract with Penguin Random House.
