Caged

By Edytta Anna Wojnar

The song of birds outside
pulls her

out of a nightmare
in which chicks hatch

from eggs submerged
in boiling water.

She hastily retrieves them
and not knowing what to do next,

she blankets them with foil
and places in a box.

Outside, the chirping
is gregarious.

A neighbor’s dog
starts a riot.

More birds migrate
to the yard behind her white house

where she fills
a feeder with seeds,

watches chicks with open beaks
hop behind their mothers.

The families nestle
together at night.

By the border,
mockingbirds cry.

Terror traps
children
under space blankets.

Edytta Anna Wojnar emigrated from Poland in 1986. Her poems have appeared in Paterson Literary Review, Shot Glass Journal, Adanna, and other journals. Finishing Line Press published her chapbooks Stories Her Hands Tell in 2013 and Here and There in 2014.

Photo credit: Marc Falardeau via a Creative Commons license.