I am walking to the bus stop
when I come across a dinner party
I was not invited to.
A meeting of like minds,
yellowed legs,
and ringed bills.
They watch me like hunters tracking prey.
Feathers twitch in anticipation of fallen offerings:
leftover crumbs
of food court fries they will descend upon
like blood flies.
A brave one,
their leader, perhaps,
strolls over to me.
The admiral of an avian army,
she puffs her chest to show off many medals.
“Watch me swallow this one,” she says,
and the parking lot falls silent.
“Watch me gulp him down
whole and
hollering,
worming his way down my throat.
He is big but my stomach is bigger and
God knows
I
am
starving,
for I was made to eat
men and beasts and garbage bags
so watch me swallow him down.”
Her underlings laugh their cackling cries,
beaks to the sky as though laughing at
God
Himself.
And then,
as quickly as they gathered,
they are gone.
Someone tosses an apple core into the bin with a rattling bang
and the army takes to the sky,
wings fluttering,
playing with the wind.
An entire squadron lost in a moment.
I do not see them retreat.
I board the bus.
Percy Hentschel is a first-year Biology and Humanities student at Carleton. He has no previous publication experience, besides a self-published chapbook.
