Pratik : PRATIK LA ISSUE HIGHLIGHT: DOROTHY BARRESI's Poem, "National Public Radio"

Saturday, September 4, 2021

PRATIK LA ISSUE HIGHLIGHT: DOROTHY BARRESI's Poem, "National Public Radio"

DOROTHY BARRESI

National Public Radio

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?

--Matthew 10:29

After the torture segment—

a certain method, all politics aside,

produces the most actionable intelligence true or false—

bird biology.

What might we learn about ourselves

from the birds of the air?

Pulling a little Jesus out of the hat! Or Saint Francis? One of those beards.

In drought, bird fights bird

for every scorched seed ginned from the hull.

The rites of scarcity are held

most sacred in scarcity, science shows,

and, BTW,

birds aren’t sky jewelry.

More: SS officers in the evolutionary doll-eyed army

of slicked backs and hard

beaks. Science shows.

But in times of extremity?

True extremity?

Juba, Aleppo, Fukushima, Flint—

forget Aristophanes. Hitchcock got it almost right.

One love bird eats the other love bird,

then eats the little girl.

Dorothy Barresi is the author of five books of poetry: What We Did While We Made More Guns; American Fanatics; Rouge Pulp; The Post-Rapture Diner, winner of an American Book Award; and All of the Above. She is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes and Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She is Professor of English at CSU, Northridge.

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