by Cela
Loud crowing competes with horns heralding terrible driving / empty skillet in the kitchen, again I plea for hens / Guido’s white plumage once ruled the yard, now barren, barely more than a grassy courtyard / Ma killed more than radios when Pa died / the only music now is the static of old tv screens and cars crashing and crowing across the block /
Pa went to cockfights at his family’s farms, never fought his own birds and that doesn’t make it better, but I tell myself it does / code enforcement would never visit the house on Edison / a palace on a grove grew from city streets and I thought of him as a God for it /
chickens are godless I jest / so many flags fly speaking the same language as mine / clucking and pecking apart my words / I feel safe in kitchens where red plumage covers the walls and blue green tail feathers are everywhere ; my words flow from my tongue like a song / a culture considered a nuisance so beautiful my eyes brim with tears / my car crawls along streets that are flooded with loud flashy birds / I say Cubans can’t keep their roosters in their yards and laugh-
Cela is currently writing from South Florida, where she was born and raised. A lifelong artist, athlete, and naturalist, her down time is spent putting pen to paper and playing barefoot in the wilderness. Her disdain for labels and her fascination with the human experience are recurring themes in her writing.