Sparrow, and: This Is a Shopping List

Sparrow, and: This Is a Shopping List Tyler Reilly (bio) Sparrow The sparrow in my backyardends its long day of collecting seedsand bugs by settling downin its nest in the plum treenear my recycling binalongside its handful of hatchlingswho chirp at me everytime I take empty bottles or jarsor cardboard cereal boxesout into that big plastic tubbut are louder when their motherreturns bringing a mouthfulof half-digested worms and beetlesfor them to eatfor them to livefor them to breath upon sustain themselvesand gorge upon theirmother's work yetare louder still whenthey fly out the nest and leaveeach midsummer's endpresumably never to return againbecause the odds of meencountering that same sparroware slim to none and yet an itch in the backof my mindtells me that I willencounter it or at least the ghost of itin my backyard in theabsence of its cry End Page 53 This Is a Shopping List Violets begat violence begat the perverse destruction of the mind.Begat the world's end and new beginnings of a six-time size queen.Begat the thoughts floating out of the mind like butterflies fleeing a forest fire to nest in Mexico and come back every few years in whimsy.Begat avoiding boredom with turning your insides out and outsides in.Violets begat violence in a sense, consensual violence, violence against the soul, the spirit, the mind, the flesh, the blood.Begat violence against that six-time size queen seven-time whore.Audacity to make sin spew forth from your mouth.Begat. Begat. Begat. Begat. Begat.I hate that word begat.It sounds like a type of rot, a disease one gets when they touch an uncovered white man sensually in bed yet don't receive anything back.Something somebody in World War One would get sitting their feet in water- filled trenches and rotting out their socks while they shoot at Germans/French across the Somme.Violets taste good in tea; I drink their aura and calm myself and calm myself.And calm myself on cotton bedsheets while I receive consensual violence and then I take a shower and then I go to sleep on those same cotton bedsheets.What is the meaning of the word "consummate"?I'm unholy and impure through imbibing in the holy soup passed down by gener- ations in a form of sacred dance embraced with legs tied in a Celtic knot.Where does one body begin and one end?Violets breed violence breed me breed new man new god new soul new spirit new life.I need new bedsheets.Split me in twain like lumber for a fire.Burn me. Turn me into tinder turn me into a bonfire it will be a more productive use of my splintering bones and loose intestines.What is the meaning of the word "candlewax"?Why am I afraid to be who be who am who me? End Page 54 Tyler Reilly tyler reilly is a Cincinnati, Ohio based creature who may barely meet the qualifications of being human and also happens to write poetry. They like birds. Their work has been previously published in Short Vine Journal and Space City Underground. Copyright © 2024 University of North Dakota