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Different Species

Outside
the deck
two birds
wade

in birdseed,
one small,
a dark-eyed junco,
the other,

twice her size,
a brown-
headed
cowbird

a step away
from my geranium,
quaking
its feathers,

parrying its beak
into a hissing V
and insists
feed me

in a language
available
to imposter
hungry birds.

The junco
keeps
picking up
seed

faster from the
feeder
foster mom does
n’t look

anything like
its real mother
junco pitch
hits

down
the cowbird’s
throat
on my deck

every day
for weeks
the same noisy
racket,

junco hasn’t got
the olfactory
to know whose egg
is whose bird

just knows
a mouth wide open
eats does
n’t discriminate

one cry
from another,
hops to
on my patio railing

cowbird
moos
bell ringing
a dish of seed.

2 thoughts on “Different Species”

    1. Theresa:

      How wonderful it makes me feel that you are still checking on my blog! I hope you are well. I am getting reacquainted with the Bay Area and I’ll be entering the MFA program at San Francisco State (in fiction) as of September. It hasn’t been altogether easy, but my friends have been helping me ease back into big city life. Say hello to anyone we know. Maybe some day I can return and teach once again in the area. All my best, Lenore

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