Parroting
By Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips
Published 11 March 2024
There is a picture of a parrot but no bird.
It is hard to reassure Joanne that the things we miss return.
I listen as air pushes past cartilage to fill empty space. My lungs are heavy.
Hands shake, sweat grows on face.
I imagine outside where Peter must be.
Can he even fly? Project his body in the sky?
For a bird with cut wings, there’s so much at stake.
Things I didn’t eat today:
pizza, softener, hard boiled egg, Dali’s mustache, a personal best.
Aluminum.
Four hard boiled eggs.
And a bird cage.
Now laying on your bed, stomach to mattress
I try not to look at my reflection.
Phone light casts a strange glow.
I need to get toilet paper but don’t want to go anywhere.
I listen to birds outside.
On a sulky summer afternoon steam rises from stove-top bolognaise.
Lorikeets riot in the gold of the golden hour.
Drifted to dozing by the dryer’s crease-free hum.
Another dead plant with my name on it.
As per Lydia Davis, let’s construct a dog
from the hair we find between couches.
Footnote: this poem was co-written with the Red Room Poetry team created using the Between-the-action constraint as the starting point.