The ape-man who devised his “devil’s tomb” as a kind of bird sanctuary (he loved to eat birds), held in his mind’s eye’s dead hands (for he was in fact deceased) the parakeet. He nobbled on its head, yum-yum. And when the dead do eat, and eat their fill, there in the stonewalled cherub- space (the space of light, feathery death — without character, without word), well, the ones who live are filled with tremendous jealousy! So, then, as the avitium bred and spread all the more in the death-hold, their spirits or souls were not their own, only the ape-man’s playthings.
Christian McDonough’s work has appeared in Hobart, Back Patio Press, and D.F.L. Lit. He is the author of the poetry collection Book Of A Thousand Poems.