I worked in a bushhut.
Birds hadn’t been invented yet.
Inevitably, they learned. Then sang.
Then bit the dust dancing.
The walls were so thin
they could see inside our form
with its extreme left part.
You stood in the field until you were one.
You wanted to be a wall and be held.
But doesn’t everybody? Beyond that,
who cares? Holding your key, blankly
shivering in the snow, I guess you.
 
 
 
The Walls by Matt Henriksen

I worked in a bookshop.
Small birds died in the walls.
The song inevitable, I learned
the dance dust did.
Walls that wouldn’t burn
parted us and floored the form
of walls that sounded like birds.
You stood in a field that bore night.
In the field stood a wall that held
the birds. Beyond the wall,
songs of walls, and behind
those walls, confusing the song,
you, shivering blank keys.

(Matt Henriksen’s poem originally appeared in Redivider)