Inside the Grid​

Issue 18

Momma whispers, "birds are magical
they know things we can
 
never understand,
travel dimensions, carry seed, yesterday to tomorrow."
 
Outside my window, wires
crisscross, four directions meet at a local
 
power station, where man controls the energy.
I stare into the cold breath of December.
 
Icicles hang like convicts in cells
from the heavy powerlines.
 
In the naked air, a black bird lands, cuts
the ropes. Several cicles fall into the snow below.
 
The bird chatters and jumps,
turning front and back, excited,
 
eyes flitting left and right
like momma looking around before she speaks.
 
"Inside the grid, life flows,
opens worm holes--
 
escape points.
Upon the wire, a bird pecks an unseen doorway,
 
all creation electrifies the wire,
distance collapses,
 
vibrations from another time and place
gather about its feet.
 
Many birds have flown
this path, where wings are of no use,
 
messengers across parallels,
where all birds will travel one day."
 
Now, they say I, too, have Parkinson's,
and the birds land outside my window as well.

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SCOTT SHARPE loves to write poetry that makes the banal collide with the world just beyond our grasp. He has been published in Workers Write!, Comical Cadence and Pretty Near Poems for Humor Consumers and Irony Buffs, among others.
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