THirty-Fourth Contest
First Place

“Be like the birds,” my Baba told me
before she sprouted wings
and flew
away.

“They never sit,” she told me,
“No, never sit or wallow,
they flit, flit, to-and-fro,
branch to bough,
be like the birds.”

She used to watch the birds, feed them
with seed from a closet
that the mice found
in her tiny home
that smelled like
home
until it wasn’t.

And so, when the world is an ocean
in every corner of everything,
everywhere
crushing down,
down,
down,
I am a bird.

When my legs are leaden with all I carry
exhaustion and ache,
when all I want
is to be
still
I am a bird.

I used to dream I could fly like the birds
but my mind is far too heavy
to lift me up again
even in sleep.
So I have to be
like the birds
on my own
and keep
flitting

until one day I
sprout wings
and be
like Baba.