Upon Catching the Avian Flu

We need to end this

nonsense about the birds.

These early-morning

sirens. Devoting half

our petty verses

to their honour.

I realize I’ll be booted

from the guild, seen

as a bitter bard,

renounced as

a blasphemer,

but I’ll waggle my

duke at the sky

like Grampa Simpson, scowling

while one flits on her merry

way, flapping her gorgeous

plumes, always looking forward—

never peering

to the ground

at our transgressions,

our stepping around the

tippler on the pedway,

taking his emptied

bottle to the store

for twenty cents;

the body of a

missing ingénue, composting

in the bowels of

the forest, while

her parents offer prayer;

and a home that’s blown

to motes amid the sand,

in the name of Abraham, or

his God she’s yet to see

inside the clouds,

aloof

as spray & thunder, an

entreated deity.

Andreas Gripp

October 31, 2025

RF Image