The Ostriches: Part IV

THE OSTRICHES: PART IV, 26 FEDERAL PLAZA

Leonardo’s first inventions were machines
To tear the bars off windows and open
A prison from inside. He escaped the gibbet
And the stake and wandered the market
Buying caged birds to set free. Every sketch
And painting an endless draft for a picture
Of the mind in its movement, infinite.

He engraved the first globe of the Americas
On two halves of an ostrich egg, hatching
A new world in every detail and unseen
Possibility: HIC SVNT DRACONES, born
Of flightlessness, only to crowd the dirty floor
Beneath a mylar tarp, forty to a clockless cell,
Condemned by exile, detained unto death,
One throne of stainless steel between them,
An ANVS MVNDI of a flat and mindless Earth.

“The Ostriches” is a poetry cycle written and read by Val Vinokur and published by Public Seminar. The cycle is a continuation of “The Big Cats,” a 12-part series Vinokur began writing in June 2020 in response to COVID-19, George Floyd’s murder, and other world-shifting events as they unfolded.