We did not capture the bird
The bird bombed itself into the kitchen window,
repeated calamities against the glass – beak / blood /
beak / blood. As a result I cannot come to your party. I am too full
of elastic and stinging nettles. My arms are shot with feathers
out of sympathy for the cadaver, its neck stabbed backwards into its body,
its wings a broken protractor. There are reasons
the birds are throwing themselves away like this & I’m in charge
of none of them. My role is to witness
using almost obsolete technologies. Think of the man
who built a library of creature songs in California,
who lived long enough with water bottles and escalators
to see his tapes ingested by fire. Recently, I will not name things –
not robin, nor Mohammed, nor Olivia – because I hope
the unnamed may proliferate. Ask me how I know
about the Zayante band-winged grasshopper, its buzz
that sounds entirely like plastic melting.
*
Defences
He says, you must locate the heart
of the enemy. You must pour boiling water
onto their queen. You must watch the steam
worry the sunless morning. What a morning.
What a honey trap sticky with ants. He says,
probably the ants are farming the aphids.
Probably the ants have nested under the bath.
What a forest of rose-fists knocking
on the bathroom window. We refuse
to kill the ants because we believe
in the sanctity of bodies clambering
for a future. Because we know what we will
become. Let us cloister inside with vinegar.
Let us sign a petition. The petition
says, please: not me, please, please, not me.
*
Mary Paterson is a writer and curator based in London (UK). She writes mainly for performance, and her work has been performed around the world including with Live Art DK (Copenhagen), Wellcome Collection (London) & Arnolfini (Bristol). Her poetry has been published by Poetry Magazine, 3am Magazine, & Ambient Receiver, amongst others. Mary is the co-founder of ‘Something Other’: a platform for experimental writing and performance, running since 2014.
