The Unauthorized Audubon

Exclamation Birds

9 Exclamation Birds They do not wear their hearts upon their sleeves. They do not stand upon their heads in trees though once a poet thought they did. She saw them perched on skinny posts, quite tall, backlit against the moon, and looking up, when really they were clustered in a clump, feet on the ground, beaks down, their tails on point, in exclamation, rising from a joint in their behinds, a tiny cog that cranks the feathers straight, upright, when there’s a prank that might be played on people taking note: birds with rudders, birds that navigate like boats? They do not chirp, they do not squawk, they do not tweet. They croon haa roo, haa roo, haa roo. They lift their tails each evening with the moon, half-mast their tails when morning comes, too soon! ...