The Birds

* * * Barred White Noise and Blue A barred owl hoots—unseen——–heard Dig,—–the cloak of night An apparition—secreted on some dark bough A noisy booger,—–audacious whoop—against constant flood of freeway…

Lessons I’ve Learned From a Woodpecker: Save your brain Get to work Be loving Be free I had a few concussions when I was younger. I feel like we are…

July 23: six weeks of high summer still to go. A heat dome has simmered us in 110 degrees. When it breaks like a fever, we throw the windows open…

* * * my sixteenth year spreads itself between steam flooding under a locked door & my mother knocking softly. a juicy lucy burger waits in my stomach & i’m…

There is something about your hands, the gentle attentiveness with which they allow the beetle to crawl over them, crossing the same space over and over again as you move…

I know the poets say “bone-white,” but bones are never really so-white, and these beached bones have surely been bleached white. On approach to them, I am tilted by the…

One day when my dad picked me up from kindergarten he told me that he and mom had a surprise. Food minded, I asked if it was candy, when he…

* * * The Woodpecker He interrupts us with his staccato tap tapping, swivels his skunk crown to mock our quiet conversation. By now we assume all the rules are…

* * * Short Story I saw the third egg there, split open, pink, plastic, half drowning in mud, and thought for a second about saving it, but instead stared…

With branch and root and raining mirrors down all the doors in cavesnakings down the clouds the cliffs the creeks where floratubes thump satin blood in purple petals spinning and…

Recently, I asked my mother why I was afraid of birds. “Maybe it was because you saw the movie The Birds when you were too young. Or maybe it was…

* * * WITH MOORE & NIEDECKER ON THE NORTH SEA | SEEING that terns & skuas are quicker than rocks that lichen acidifies sandstone back to sand on the…

We live in the woods and are visited daily by animals. We used to rush to the windows to take pictures, but by now the deer and rodents feel commonplace,…

* * * bird, announce * * * rolling * * * versed * * * J.I. Kleinberg is an artist, poet, and freelance writer. She has twice been nominated…