lengleng

The Lyrebird and Writing Desk It is a frightening lung, a not-quite-natural red swell beneath feathers, that grates like a shaken sack of nails. This bird is a chameleon of voices, modulating its shriek to whatever frequent note might rise through the trees. Today its cry has become the gargle of splinters and split wood: the chainsaw's growling melody. In my own climate, adapting to the shift of pages and their stains, my voice strains; I almost crow.

My Father's Tool Shed On Sundays he would creep into his tool shed opening the window just enough to grab the attention of the snow, which fell endlessly that year. We watched. Like a chiseler carefully walking through November rain he would fist the nails that lay on the ground and tack them beneath his palms, only bleeding on interruption. That tool shed, so full of holes that when we walked through barefoot to grab a can of Tab, splinters would  crawl up inside, and above our ankles. We would sit outside flaming, while we smoked our stolen Winstons. It was this way until after church, when words flew from b