MY PAST LIFE AS A SONGBIRD
In this life, I should have been most happy. Nary a care in the world, save for the constant pressure of having to marry the need for a mate with a tune. I sang like the last living creature on earth, burning out my syrinx until the air vibrated like the strings of some heavenly harp, calling me back to the fold, though deep down I knew it was all just wishful thinking. What did I have to live for? A nest full of hatchlings and a drowned-out song? At least I wasn’t lying.
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ELIZABETH KNAPP is the author of The Spite House (C&R Press, 2011), winner of the 2010 De Novo Poetry Prize. The recipient of awards from Literal Latté and Iron Horse Literary Review, she has published poems in Best New Poets, The Massachusetts Review, Mid-American Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and many other journals. She teaches at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland.
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Read more by Elizabeth Knapp:
Author’s Website
Another poem in B O D Y
Poem in New Orleans Review
Poem at Literal Latté
Poem in Spoon River Poetry Review
Three poems in The Adirondack Review