**
We regret to inform you
that the grackles
are up to something.
We noticed it last week.
They’d call them sky rats
but they heard rats are smart
and if there’s one thing
that must not be allowed to be true
about those car alarms on the power lines,
it’s that they’re intelligent.
The bastard or the bitch or
whatever’s the term
for an adult, female grackle—
the one with brown feathers—
buzzed my head the other day,
then took a swipe at my dog.
I yelled.
She screamed.
The dog yipped.
It’s nesting season
or it’s mating season
or it’s some other godforsaken season
and the grackles,
as we informed you,
are up to something.
They’d call them nature,
but when those punks
aren’t strutting around
with their chests all unfurled
and their wings out
like fans on showgirls
they’re eating from our garbage.
Surely, that’s an urban bird?
It was around this time
three years ago
that one landed on the railing
and leered in at me
then
gobbled down a worm,
twelve times the size of the wrens
settling on the lamplight.
It was around this time
two years ago
that I passed under them,
there by the school
where the train comes through,
and they all somehow honked at me.
It was around this time
one year ago
that little of note happened
between me and a common grackle
but I know,
and you know,
and we all know
that the grackles
once again
are up to something.
**
