Bok-bok Brother

Originally published in Fork Apple Press’s Core Review #2.

At the Cuenca aviary, a macaw landed on your shoulder—you didn’t even flinch. I would’ve sworn you two had met before, the way you both chirped on and on like old drinking buddies. You bobbed your head; the bird bobbed back. You made a squawk; the bird squawked back. All of a sudden, I realized: you are a bird, and you’ve always been a bird. You two are animal siblings.

Ten years ago, our stupid cockatiel, Polly, executed a perfect nosedive into a pan full of room-temp canola oil (the one you’d fried up chips with the night before). You buffed her soggy wings with soap for a week, even when she pierced your hands bloody with her scared little bird bites.

A year later, we woke up and she was dead. You and I shared a bunk bed back then, and I remember how you didn’t talk for three days, to me or anyone. You just bobbed your head—left-to-right and up-and-down. Nervous. Scanning. I tiptoed so you wouldn’t fly away. The only sound we shared was the creaky bedframe in our basement bedroom.

But I get it now. You are a bird, and mourning is hard in a second language. Maybe if I’d had a bird brain then, I could’ve squawked:

“[bok. bok.]
I’m not a bird,
I know, but

I’ll nip your hand
and bob my head
if you’d like.

You can play me
your saddest songs,
your Radiohead shit

I never loved,
and I’ll nod along
with you—

because
you are my
bird brother,
and I want
to talk
[bok. bok.]
to you.”