for the birds

half a world away

a tumbleweed rolling back to the earth a twig for the birds a whim to go outdoors to brush your dog’s hair and release it to warm their eggs blinking and tweeting when predators are nowhere to be found a star in the sky waiting to explode having exploded hundreds of years ago the light waiting to reach us in all its glory a cold cozy driveway barefoot with a hoodie on a street lamp astigmatism dragging cursing at the darkness a slaughter thousands of miles away dust in plumes above them reaching us as disasters taking out roads with a single bite and we burn bridges in our mind intertwined with the suffering of people half a world away

we all exchange a glance at the lens in the sky and go quiet

back in December drones flew above me blinking and disappearing orange light one after another in an endless path no one knew what I was looking at they just looked at me, looking

I recorded and sent it to my sister “aliens” she said we are being inhabited by a foreign entity, a grain of rice in the leg, an owl turning its head, a possum playing dead

strange things happen at 3 am whether it’s a ghost haunting my ancestors or a fox barking at me on the sidewalk, I never knew foxes could bark and that coyotes enter the neighborhood every now and then not making a peep and scale fences hunting for something cheap and that trucks sprayed mosquito spray turning the corner never to be seen again, and shooting stars entered the world’s stage on a whim

I linger, trying to resurrect myself from the dead

I peer in-between the branches where birds sing their songs, follow the shooting stars with the black holes of my eyes, breathe in the hazy air until a clear day brings me back online

hand to my heart, I can feel it

the vibrations of warfare

my heart snapped like a twig this morning

when a bird in the sky struck a refugee camp

I went quiet in front of the television

like I imagined it

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Roxanne Byrne 2026 ©