Shawn Pavey
BIRDS AND POEMS


I could try confetti
and be Giacometti
writing on matchbooks
the entirety of my collected works.
Maybe colored origami
but only after it is folded
into sandcranes, penguins
or great blue herons.
Possibly that is what
will be: scribbling poems
about birds that soar and sing,
wallow in mud puddles,
drink water from upturned
flower blossoms.
Birds and poems,
the very same thing.

when not wadded up or tossed away,
still-born in an overflowing trash bin.
Will they take flight? Hint at what they are?

A feather tucked behind an ear.

A wing out of the corner of an eye.

SHAWN PAVEY is the author of Talking to Shadows (Main Street Rag Press, 2008), Nobody Steals the Towels From a Motel 6 (Spartan Press, 2015), and Survival Tips for the Pending Apocalypse (2019, Spartan Press).  He co-founded The Main Street Rag Literary Journal and served as an Associate Editor. He recently completed two months as a Poet in Residence at The Osage Arts Community. A graduate of the University of North Carolina’s Creative Writing Program, he likes his Tom Waits loud, his bourbon single-barrel, and his basketball Carolina Blue.

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