(Poem Written on the Side/ Of an Old Envelope)

dedicated to Jennifer, who told me

A flock
Of birds
Few past
My window
And I could only
Watch them
For a few seconds
But they fluttered
In my head all
Day
A ghost flock
Of birds

A friend of mine
Sad she
(as a child)
Harbored a
Pigeon in her
Ear for
Almost 3 years*

She says
At the time
She thought all
People harbored
Birds in
Their ears

This is true
And also untrue


* My friend told me when she was about 3 years old she was walking down the street with her mother on a sunny windy day, and she was startled to see a white pigeon fly by close past her ear. When she turned, she couldn’t see where it went. So she concluded that when she cupped her hand to her ear, this soft noise she head was not the ocean, it was the pigeon now nesting in her ear…