- The Story about the Birds Changes after the Baby Is Born, and: Poem Without New Year’s Resolutions
The Story about the Birds Changes after the Baby Is Born
Why have I held onto it so tightly, grippingits thin wrist, dragging it behind me all these
years, hurry up. It was summertime in the desert—inarticulate summertime—and the boys
were popping grackles off a wire with their b-b guns.The ones they didn’t hit kept coming back, shaking
the heat out of their feathers and looking aroundwith their unwieldy eyes. Stupid birds is what
the one boy said. Because I was watching them,he’d turn every once in a while and point his gun
at me and the other boys would laugh, not knowingwhat to do. He was having a bad childhood, but
who wasn’t? I didn’t fly away. I stayed where I was.But I wanted to go. In the story, that had always
been enough. But it’s not enough anymore.So I’m giving this story away. [End Page 166]
Poem Without New Year’s Resolutions
Maybe it’s no longer a pure kind of behavioryou seek, with so much breathing in it
and so much regret. What if you make only thisdark morning yours, and the insane thuds
the giant dumpsters make behind the strip mallwhen they’re tossed back to the pavement
by the trash truck? Let Spanish go, let runninggo, let yoga do flawless back walkovers across
the dead lawn in its very flattering leotard,let it just be gone. Let this body
be the body you’ll carry forward, at leastinto this day. Let the sound of the dumpsters
wake the baby so she starts calling for youtoo early, Come upping me right now!
in her new businessy voice. What if this is justyour luck and all you need to do is let it
come into the room—just let it come—let ittake off its coat and talk to a few people
before you reach for its elbow, kiss its cheekand start telling it what it owes you? [End Page 167]
carrie fountain’s poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, Poetry, and Tin House. Her first collection, Burn Lake, was a winner of the 2009 National Poetry Series Award and was published by Penguin in 2010. Her second collection, Instant Winner, will be published by Penguin in 2014. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband, the playwright Kirk Lynn, and their children.