Inseparables by Janna Layton
Inseparables – 35 €,
says the sign, even though that price
is only for one lovebird, not two,
at the Sunday bird mart on Ile de la Cité.
The cages are full of them:
green and peach classic,
blue-gray dawn,
blue-gray evening,
green, yellow, and black like a sports flag.
But only one with a body like a lemon
and a face like tangerine ice cream.
Perhaps it is connected by invisible thread to one of the others,
not caring if its lover is ordinary green,
or else loving how yellow and cobalt look together.
Outside their Mountain View apartment, my friends
find a matching lovebird, alone.
Now it hops across their computer keyboards,
flies over the sofa, walks along their counters.
It doesn’t seem to mourn being cleaved from some unseen partner,
unless when it is calling to the blackbirds outside,
it is really singing from some deep memory of a little yellow parrot
a continent and an ocean away.
Janna Layton is a writer and office worker getting by in San Francisco. Her poetry and fiction have been published or are upcoming in various literary journals, including The Rag, 100 Word Story, Bartleby Snopes, REAL, and The Pinch. She rambles on about comic books and stuff at readingwatchinglookingandstuff.blogspot.com.
Inseparables – 35 €,
says the sign, even though that price
is only for one lovebird, not two,
at the Sunday bird mart on Ile de la Cité.
The cages are full of them:
green and peach classic,
blue-gray dawn,
blue-gray evening,
green, yellow, and black like a sports flag.
But only one with a body like a lemon
and a face like tangerine ice cream.
Perhaps it is connected by invisible thread to one of the others,
not caring if its lover is ordinary green,
or else loving how yellow and cobalt look together.
Outside their Mountain View apartment, my friends
find a matching lovebird, alone.
Now it hops across their computer keyboards,
flies over the sofa, walks along their counters.
It doesn’t seem to mourn being cleaved from some unseen partner,
unless when it is calling to the blackbirds outside,
it is really singing from some deep memory of a little yellow parrot
a continent and an ocean away.
Janna Layton is a writer and office worker getting by in San Francisco. Her poetry and fiction have been published or are upcoming in various literary journals, including The Rag, 100 Word Story, Bartleby Snopes, REAL, and The Pinch. She rambles on about comic books and stuff at readingwatchinglookingandstuff.blogspot.com.
