All That I Don't Know About Birds

Angela Kirby

The time that passes between the small feathered fury of mating
and the solitary laying of eggs; where and how the man of the nest
spends his time: she is carefully opening herself to the future;

What they think about arms when they see us, if we appear
fresh plucked, grounded: or do they curl wingtips and dream
little bones, little fingers stiffening preened feathers;

Where they carry the nails, the hammers, the string; what they build
inside hedges, behind leaved screens: what they love and crucify;

How two birds find each other again and again in the whole sky.

---

Angela Kirby is the 2022 Second Prize Winner in the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. Publications include Nimrod International Journal, Roanoke Review, Humber Literary Review, Another & Another: An Anthology Of The Grind, Seam|Ripper, and Lament for the Dead. She writes in the mountains of North Carolina.