What Rough Beast | 07 07 20 | Robin Gow

Robin Gow
aubade possibly made of ash

the birds outside my window
are not birds at all. they are likely
a swarm of girls with bob-haircuts
all chattering early morning.
it is important to get a head start
on gossip & to always gossip
about the big deal topics. the birds are
discussing the impending super nova
of our sun. one bird is telling the other
she should hold off on buying
a very expensive purse
in case the sun burns us all.
i want to chime in & tell her
to buy whatever she wants if we’re all
going to be ash soon. i think about
an ash version of myself held together
only by stillness. the next wind
will disperse all my pieces.
i have always been fascinated with
places people want their ashes scattered.
we still have my grandfather’s ashes
& my dad won’t let me take them down
to the creek to pour them out
of the metal jar they wait in.
as you can imagine,
there are a lot of ghosts
who come to my windows at night.
i tell them to please go.
they mistake me for a television.
i explain i have no storyline
& they don’t understand what i mean.
soon i will walk outside
& confirm that the birds were not birds
but what if they are birds?
we all know animals can speak human
they just choose not to reveal themselves.
all the time i type out comments
on people’s Facebook statuses
just to delete them. i’m imagining
a giant urn full of all my deleted words.
nothing special, just a lot of
“have you”s and “i love”s.
what if i am a bird
& i don’t know it yet? what if i have
a bob haircut. i hope not
i prefer my hair less uniform.
my dog dreams about
squirrel tails without the rest
of the squirrel. we are all selecting
our favorite traits from ever living creature.
somedays all i can see is wings
& toes. today though i hope i can
at least see elbows & ankles.
no one appreciates the feet of birds enough.
so thin & so sturdy. if i noticed
another creature reduced to
only ash, i would inhale deeply
& blow the ash out across the room.
my new apartment will be made
of straw & apologies. my new lover
will be a nest of birds. my new sun will be
sour & green & unswallowable.

—Submitted on 05/13/2020

Robin Gow is the author of Our Lady of Perpetual Degeneracy (Tolsun Books, 2020) and Honeysuckle (Finishing Line Press, 2019). Their poetry has appeared in PoetryNew Delta ReviewWashington SquareThe TinyAbout Place Journal, and other journals, as well as in anthologies including The Impossible Beast: Queer Erotic Poems (Damaged Goods Press, 2020), edited by Caseyrenée Lopez and Willie Weaver. They hold an MFA from Adelphi University and live in eastern Pennsylvania.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.