Photo by Cameren Harper, May 2017

This spring, it seemingly isn’t enough
that we’ve once again converted our porch
into a brood-rearing safe haven:
The once-adorable, amiable models
of avian parental prowess that have been
gracing us with their proximity
for years, are now a couple of flighty,
black & white fluff-balls of aggression. 

It’s like their little bird brains just
suddenly lost all sense of perspective—
their former bearing of healthy respect
toward us & our home has morphed
into a hostile face-off of assaults
on the front door window, dive-bombing
campaigns on the car in the driveway,
replete with poo, & kamikaze-style strikes
on their equally-fraught reflections
in the side-view mirror.

Why, my teen-aged son has been asking,
are the Chickadees being so stupid?

Of course, he already understands
that the answer to his question lies
in another question—which, come to think
of it, is THE question that everyone I know
has been asking for months, since nobody
is really surprised anymore when something
extreme, irrational, or just plain opposite-of-
intelligent happens—it’s as if the Bizarro World
episode of Seinfeld just started up again on its own,
& in its antithetical-T.V.-show fashion, decided
never to end—because, apparently, Nature, itself,
is being required to stretch its fabric all out of proportion
in effort to accommodate the unprecedentedly-dense
troposphere’s lambasting winds; but I find myself

ask-answering him, anyway, if only half-hopeful
that this serum synthesized of not-reasons might yet
suffice to inoculate him against such rife contagion:

Do they remind you of anyone?

STEPHANIE L. HARPER

“Avium Morbum MMXVII” was first drafted during the May 2017 Tupelo Press 30/30 challenge.

My new poetry chapbook, This Being Done, is available for advance copy purchase at Finishing Line Press from now until April 27, 2018. The number of orders received during this two-month pre-publication sales period will determine the size of the print run, which is currently scheduled for release on June 22, 2018. For more info CLICK HERE!