Aviary

This is how it goes: when we cover
our eyes, it begins to rain. Sewers

flood with saplings. This idea of flow
is important to us, or to you. I want

to be more like a drain: something
that stays put. Something that lets

other things pour though it. In time,
when we open our mouths, entire

aviaries will spill out. Leakage. A type
of storm that matters in what you

would call the grand scheme of things.
In time, I will be able to tell you why

there are so many birds, so many options
for slaughter. A man who comes through

with a rifle, and then the birds, falling.
Their ghosts hitting the pavement.

Talin Tahajian grew up near Boston. Her poetry has recently appeared in Salt Hill Journal, Indiana Review, Kenyon Review Online, Best New Poets 2014, Columbia Poetry Review, DIAGRAM, and Washington Square Review. She’s the author of half a split chapbook, START WITH DEAD THINGS (Midnight City Books, 2015), and serves as a poetry editor for The Adroit Journal. She is currently an undergraduate student at the University of Cambridge, where she studies English literature and attempts to assimilate.