BAGHDAD'S BIRDS
Gretchen Fletcher

They say the lovebirds were the first to die, shedding
little chartreuse, cobalt, and violet feathers like so many
colored teardrops into the bottoms of their cages,
their tiny hearts shocked by awesome vibrations stirring
the air outside where next their cousins dropped
in orchards and lay dead under plum trees
after flying upside down, somersaulting in flight,
all sense of up and down blown away by the blasts.
Survivors flutter aimlessly above the Tigris,
like Keats' lake with withered sedge, where no birds sing.


PUBLISHED: Open Windows 2005 by Ghost Road Press, Denver, CO