G-NT3806KSJP

Little Brown Birds


   


These threads hanging off my old shirt
These pink clouds assigned happiness
Those little brown birds
That creaking gate
I’m in proximity to love
My neighbor’s period is late
My hands warm up over her life
I used to want to be in love
But now I want professionally
The leaves
Outside shaking their small asses
The trees outside shaking their big asses
The little brown birds
Sit up and crawl
I thought I could outthink myself
With words naked as rocks
Those rocks the babies of glaciers
Those glaciers made of mobility
Which is a little brown bird on a rock
And a rock hitting a little brown bird
I could be someone’s second life
But I’m not who I am just yet
A dream is having me against my will
I’m a lonely hole
Fetch me another hole
That was a marble bust speaking
This is the voice of a paper bag you can blow into


Rennie Ament is the author of Mechanical Bull, an Editor’s Choice pick forthcoming from the CSU Poetry Center in 2023. She lives in Maine.