The Songbird
by Ezra Flowers
You gutted me open
Like a pretty white cat
Peels the fascia from a songbird
And tenderly licks the organs underneath
The white cat savors its meal
It venerates every part of its prize
And when the carcass is forgotten
It looks to its master for praise
The sun draws its anchors starboard
The white cat arches its back
When it flees from the moon's beauty
I hope it's haunted by silence
Gone are the tuneless intervals
And gone is the disjointed refrain
The songbird's voice is only a memory
Your master will never mind again
But you will, because I'll always crawl back to you.
Ezra Flowers is a hopeless romantic in a complicated love triangle between the arts and the humanities. As a transgender man, he has become used to overanalyzing his feelings, putting his obsession with character and philosophy on display in his work. A Californian from birth, his frequent exposures to nature come easily as symbolism, featuring trees, birds, and the vast ocean as motifs in his poems time and time again. “The Songbird” displays each of these characteristics equally.