Voicemail From My Mother
        After Claudia Emerson

You know, I haven't heard from you in a while. Did I tell you
                      a bird flew into the house?
Found an open door on a cold day. Something small,

like a chickadee, but even more chickadee than that.
                      I chased it around the house
with an upturned broom until I lost track through all that

sweeping of dirty air. This was a ways back, two cats ago.
                      I didn't see it fly out,
so it's hung in my mind ever since—an unclosed parenthesis.

I've braced myself the way the ear hears a squeal of brakes
                      and begs for a thud.
Braced myself to find a tiny skeleton each time I clean

behind the curtains or rearrange the furniture. Today,
                      opening the drawer of cords
that go to things I probably already threw away,

it flew out, perched briefly on my shoulder,
                      then alighted hard,
and I mean hard, into the mirror of the closed window.

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Copyright © 2021 Robert Lynn All rights reserved
from The Greensboro Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission