Some Melodious Plot

Anthony Borruso

^{The United States government murdered over 12 billion birds over the course of 1959}
^{threw [sic] 2001. As they killed off the real birds they replaced thim [sic] with surveillance}
^{drone replicas. Indistinguishable from a biological bird. There are now no real}
^{birds left.}
^{—Official Birds Aren’t Real Informational Van Bumper Sticker}

i. The Philosophical Ornithologist

It is, as all things are, a problem
of perspective. What you think

you are watching, watches
you. Your binoculars convince

themselves they’re quotation marks.
The spy in the song, the feathered

thoughts, the cold hard data
you spun into silky fact

that the comment section couldn’t
wait to run its fingers over.

Of course, the pigeons adapted
to an urban space—they’re party birds

with smokey plumage, and they grow
peckish unless they’re bobbing

beaks to Milli Vanilli or waving
glow sticks around the Sabrett stand.

Ancient Egyptians and Williamsburg
hipsters have nothing in common

except how their feelings take sharp
angles in broad daylight when the sun

nests in their beards. What I mean
is that the bygone is hellbent

on a comeback, i.e., the early bird
pecks a blog post about the importance

of visually manifesting the worm—
actually encompassing its wriggle

in your quaint skull before
taking it to beak. You know though

that we are post-extinction and fully
flapped out—just look at us,

ogling Mother Nature’s augmentation
with craned necks, covering every

millimeter of the visible world
with the vermiculations of a stock

ticker. Something’s wrong. Like,
real wrong: I knock on mountains

and hear a vast metallic thud. I sleep
on eiderdown, but can’t seem to

squawk loud enough to stir the other
Denny’s denizens from their Grand

Slam breakfasts. In Altoona, Pennsylvania
and Waco, Texas, I can feel my face

being scanned every time I munch
a Big Mac. On this highway, a pit stop

is a pit stop is a pit stop and overhead
migration is a chance to grease gears

and re-feather the avian bait-and-switch.