Scott Withiam

FOR AN ANTHOLOGY OF POEMS ABOUT FATHERS SHOOTING SONGBIRDS

Make this the last poem
on another dead subject. Feed no more

unintentionally off-color
over-colorful descriptions.

No more flitting inquisitions
as to the reasons such deeds occurred.

It creates the worst singsong racket.
Those who witnessed, find closure

here: By revealing your tales, you found each other.
Flocks move on. Concede. What's dropping

are the number of incidents. Still,
so many try to keep alive the fact

that these were the grossest acts,
each the single most thing our helpless fathers felt

they could control. There's but one thing
our fathers felt. They thought the damn things stupid.

Scott Withiam's poems are most recently out in Agni Magazine, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Fine Madness. Poems are forthcoming in Green Mountains Review, Madison Review and Drunken Boat. His chapbook, Desperate Acts and Deliveries, was last year’s winner of the Two Rivers Review Chapbook Contest, and his first book, Arson & Prophets, recently came out with Ashland Poetry Press.