Untitled ll (If I Were A Bird)
I would hope
You would build me a nest
From twigs and leaves
If I were hatched the day
The forest regurgitated its sap
I would ask for you to kick me
Out but I'm not a bird
With a collapsible skeleton
I don't live in a nest why pretend
That it would work living in a tree
And living off its sap we evolved
Into non-birds
The brain more capacious
Arms crossing the air
Useless as wings
If I could I would take flight
Into an aerial battle with gods
As warriors re-making things
Russian-American poet Stella Hayes is the author of the poetry collection One Strange Country (What Books Press), in which this poem appears. She grew up in an agricultural town outside of Kiev, Ukraine as well as in Los Angeles, and earned a creative writing degree at University of Southern California. Her work has appeared in Prelude, The Indianapolis Review, and Spillway, among others.
