VINYL POETRY

Volume 10, July 2014

BIRDIE
Peter LaBergeView Contributor’s Note

Dream in a Discarded Room

Once inside, I see with the blue
eyes of my mother—a nest

of September cicadas on the wall
humming their family chorus.

Meanwhile, the female’s body molts, carried
through the night like a reluctant soldier.

Outside, a man with tucked wings
walks down a blue-bricked road,

consumed by the hollowed wife he has lifted
onto his shoulders. This is the moment

I lose something I used to love but could
never understand, and I wake.