Dawn Chorus

Frightening how a sound can stay with you – bird songs, especially before dawn.

I don’t remember his name, the guy Lori coaxed me into talking to

after she noticed him staring at me. He’s so cute.

I only slept with guys when I was drunk, I didn’t know any girls

like me in that General Motors town and I needed to be touched –

his whiskers on my cheek, my chin, cigarette breath, his mother’s dinner,

and beer smell, lots of beer smell like foamy piss all over our flimsy lives.

The smart kids had already gone to university.

We worked shitty jobs, got drunk on the weekends, the extent of our ambition.

So, what’s his name and I were in a bedroom, I sat on top of him,

held his cock pretending it was mine and jerked him off.

When I emerged from the bedroom, Lori was gone, I didn’t know anyone else.

Stepping over the stragglers with their bong, I walked out the front door,

headed north on Wilson Road towards home, all those damn birds singing,

singing the shame and frustration that it was always going to be like this, singing

the fear that a girl carries, walking alone between dark and light.