Mrs. F and the Bird’s Mind

The old lady buys a new bike and keeps it
in the shed. Weeks later, she finds
her red-and-blue darling covered with
bird poop, accusing her, “See what happenes
when you buy the stuff you don’t use?”
Her mouth drawn in thin line
she glares at the noisy bird nest at the edge of
the ceiling above the bike.
The baby wrens now silent, sensed the terror.
In her sizzling mind, her hubby grins.
“Like him, like the little sh*ts!” She grabs
an old fishing pole and, like a mad cat, swings
the stick to pull the straw hanging from the nest,
“Let me see you, little things!”
Mommy wren, with worm in her beak, shrieks,
startling Mrs. F falls
on her butt amid the bird poop.
Clutching her aching back, she struggles on her feet,
fights her temptation to yank the straw,
lest the nest with the baby birds fall.
She pictures the terrified little ones in the nest,
their little hearts pounding in the tiny, fuzzy chest.
She’s never before seen closer baby birds in the nest,
her curiosity, fueled by anger,
she pulls the straw a bit more forward to see them,
but the nest doesn’t budge.
Outside, the mommy wren squawks, shrill.
Mrs. F crawls out of the shed.
A week later, the babies and mommy wren,
in the tree outside her window, chirp in glee,
as if to tell her, “Thank you.”
Mrs. F laughs, her eyes brimming.
The birds fly away, except one.
“Go on,” Mrs. F tells it. “Join your siblings now.”
The chick gives her an enigmatic look and joins them
fly to the day moon winks. Mrs. F stares
at the empty nest in the box in her room, pondering.
She embraces the empty-nest syndrome for a little while.

©Byung A. Fallgren