Roost Seduction
birds have razor teeth on their tongues
terrible birds with hollow bones
birds everywhere above in the trees in the air
in water turbulent feet constantly
churning clandestine below the surface
in winter birds’ nests become an exposed
infrastructure for the cuckoo’s treachery
even now hawks descend on rabbits
an eagle spies a small dog and lowers
violent swans and exhausted albatross
can shatter vertebrates with one flap
starlings terrorize purple martins
they remain ignorant of everything
except helter skelter movement
ubiquitous birds they crash
into clear windows with abandon
openly roost in parking garages
our episodic memory quakes at
their tenacious and brutal lineage
pterodactyl’s progeny serpent’s cousin
in every egg layer we sense menace
yet we look up at a bird in the sky
and we succumb to their seduction
their weightlessness
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Jan Elaine Harris (she/her) is a Professor of Writing at Lipscomb University. She earned her MA and PhD in English at the University of Alabama. Her chapbook, Isolating One’s Priorities, was published in 2021. Other recent poems have appeared in American Writers Review, The West Trade Review, Plants and Poets Anthology, etc. She lives in East Nashville with her partner and her two perfect GSPs, Malloy and Astrid-June.
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Stone Poetry Quarterly 