Working
on a little portrait
of a brown bird
Wet feathers.
The time of your life
is everyday.
Cradling your organs
like a baby,
in your soft hands
callused by pens
electronics and the echo
of gardening tools.

We live were there is a
strange type of war
It threatens drawing birds
with little hints
the flashing light of a camera
from overhead.
If they can see you,
how long before they take
colored pencils
and pens
from those same callused hands?

Safety comes.
Will society demand it begins
with paying a high price?
Will we roll over and watch
the bird fly by and forget
what it means to paint it?

Thoughts of dystopian
futures flood me,
washing out more than
the longest day of the year.
This is different.
It’s change on levels.
Fear is deep and palpable and
doesn’t escape.
There are already oceans
between all the people.

I met someone that
kept all the guns in closets
tied up with string
I ran away.

It was years ago.

But it echoes
I close my eyes
so I won’t see it coming
and I remember the beak
of the bird,
how it slopes
at the most beautiful angle.