Day of the 1000 Weeping Birds

by Harry Greenberg

One morning I wake up and there are a 1000 weeping birds in the bedroom. I don’t know what to do. Is it some kind of practical joke? Who’d gather a 1000 weeping birds on my night table, my clothes rack, my quilt…?

When I leave the bedroom they fly into the living room. In the bathroom they perch on the medicine cabinet, they line the tub.

And the weeping! It’s on the verge of articulation like little dabs of napalm on small victories I’ve given up hoping to win.

I’m afraid of what they’ll do next, they may stop weeping and display even less regard for social amenities.

I leave my place. The weeping birds follow at a shallow distance. At her apartment I enter with the key she gave me long ago to show she had nothing to hide from our love. But now she looks at me with disgust. My weeping birds have woken her weeping birds.

 

Harry Greenberg is one of the editors of Some. He works at the Print Center is Brooklyn. (Spring 1975)