Magpies Recognize Themselves in the Mirror

The night sounds like a murder

of magpies and we’re replacing our cabinet knobs

because we can’t change the world, but we can

change our hardware. America breaks my heart

some days, and some days it breaks itself in two.

I watched a woman have a breakdown in the mall

today and when the security guard tried to help her

what I could see was all of us

peeking from her purse as she threw it

across the floor into Forever 21. And yes,

the walls felt like another way to hold us in

and when she finally stopped crying,

I heard her say to the fluorescent lighting, Some days

the sky is too bright. And like that we were her

flock in our black coats and white sweaters,

some of us reaching our wings to her

and some of us flying away.