"You should have seen what happened
this morning," Ellis Andrews told me
when we were both twelve. "It was amazing,
that’s all, amazing. I heard all the sounds of hell
outside the kitchen, out in the back
yard, you know? I looked out there
and the ground was covered with birds,
hundreds of them, enough to make you think
the yard itself was alive and chirping.
They were chattering away at each other,
making such a racket it damn near
ripped the ears right off my head.
I ran up and got my shotgun,
crept out real careful, laid the gun
flat on the ground and fired.
Forty-five birds dead in one shot.
The others? Damn, man, you never heard
a noise like they made
in your life. Birds screaming,
flapping their wings hard enough
to stir up a wind.
Baby birds hopping like crazy,
crashing into each other,
knocking each other flat
as they tried to take off.
I got four more on the rise."

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Michael Scott Cain grew up commuting between East Point, Georgia, and New York City, so he was always the kid with the weird accent. Splitting the difference geographically, he is now living in Frederick, Maryland, where he is working on a collection of poems about the people of East Point-- real and imagined. "What I Told the Man..." is from the collection. His most recent books are What the Night Will Bring (Poetry, Gypsy Witch Books) and Midnight Train (Novel, PublishAmerica).
E-mail: michaelscain at hotmail dot com  

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kaleidowhirl  |  spring 2007