Member-only story
Choir Practice
Why they fight I have no idea
Each morning,
my world sounds the same —
bird call and bus engine,
distant highway drone,
air brake, leaf blower,
delivery truck backup beep,
dog bark, baby cry,
a kitchen clatter of lunch packing,
blackbirds that fight over mulberries.
Why they fight I have no idea —
the tree is full of thousands.
I’m aware the world sounds different
for each of us — one sound the scarlet letter
to another. Yours might be an ocean wave,
a gunshot, a shouting match,
a rooster call, the silence of an empty home,
the scurry of a hidden and feasting beast.
But my sounds — I’ll pass them on
to my children, like hair color
and surname eyes.
And the world will change
and the sounds will change,
first quickly and then slow,
like the whistle of a train
that surges past while we wait
with each other in the blinking light.
