If Nothing, Then Birds
Ayşe Tekşen
If nothing, then birds
will keep me company,
watch over me.
One pigeon, then two,
a couple of sparrows
or three
in the city
as cherubim.
A linnet
and a meadowlark
in my town of home.
Guardians, they become,
of my holy witches
that shan’t be burnt
at the stakes
of His common sense.
Enough of His wisdom! Enough
of sultry radio stations,
agencies that appall their targets!
My masters’ magic
is extracting the beating heart
of the commoners
and the lonely folk.
Your front door is shaken to dust
and a second opening.
Call it a leverage
or revolution—
in lowercase.
His amnesia,
in disguise of decorum,
feigns sowing
what’s been reaped.
Those who watch over know
they look at a blackened kernel—
the last one burning—
but a matter that doesn’t matter.
Birds, then.
Then, birds.
Ayşe Tekşen lives in Ankara, Turkey where she works as a research assistant at the Department of Foreign Language Education, Middle East Technical University. Her work has been most recently included in Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Tipton Poetry Journal, Rigorous, Rabid Oak, the Thieving Magpie, Headway Quarterly, The Roadrunner Review, and Helen Literary Magazine.