VINYL POETRY

Volume 2, November 2010

BIRDIE
Megan FalleyView Contributor’s Note

Native vs. Native

When he reached the new jungle, with its metal lions and their peculiar honking, he cursed the lumberjack who shaved branches off buildings, and his own feet, for all he could not climb. When he cracked open a pigeon and ate its wing, a cult of boys in black leather bowed down, as two policeman carried him away all wide-eyed and feather-mouthed. When he took off his hat to pray in the language of wolves it was so beautiful that even the busiest men placed dollar bills at his yellowing toes. But he grew thirsty, and shook a cup at strangers who offered him pennies. He ate every last one. But finally, it was the umbrella-selling vendors, the blatant disrespect for rain that did him in. He laid across the steeple of a church and splayed himself across New York all guts and confetti. The tourists cheered like the ball had dropped.