Fifty birds would fit, but right now my body expands and the walls move out and I unravel with them. The sun filters through the slatted roof, makes an even crest down my forehead. The hiss in the eucalyptus now. This is what should be called finding yourself, as in you will not find yourself in the caged garden. When I speak words slide right off the bamboo.
Magpies swoop by as if tracing radio waves.
A meadowlark doesn't sing. She stations herself in a baby elm tree as if she owns the baby elm tree. She's been standing there five minutes, not a single word, as if this tree is silenced by the will of the bird, fully feathered in black-crested yellow. Or maybe the meadowlark is trying to hear the tree, reaching down to find a distant, sturdy voice carving sound out of the wooden core. All rights reserved.