Ryan Varadi

The Year of Failed Augury

The year our world died,
I deferred to the government of birds: 

as in, tried to soar above it all, but kept snagging
my sneakers on telephone wire. 

It was the year your sky was filled
with ash, and you sketched the grackles 

enforcing curfew from the safety
of our dusty home. 

Birds are omens, it is said,
and I wanted so desperately 

to be your omen, to guide you
from that forest burning in your mind. 

It was the year of hummingbird
assassins, wings beating the sky 

in terrible arcs. By the end,
I had no more nectar left to give you. 

It was the year I tried to grow
my words in the windowsill 

and the eagles perched outside
swallowed every fledgling body. 

All fall, a conglomerate of crows watched me
from the supermarket parking lot 

and I wanted to tell you
of their dancing in puddles when it rained. 

But when I got home, you were sleeping,
and I could not bring myself to wake you.

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Ryan Varadi is a poet, originally from Indianapolis. He holds an MFA from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he served as a staff member for Ecotone and Chautauqua Literary Journal.