The Ostriches: Part V

THE OSTRICHES: PART V, FORT SNELLING, MN

Our hair is full of the sand of cliché,
but the ostrich does not hide her head.
When the big cats and jackals dance
through the dry grass, the ostrich lies
flat on the horizon, a plumed mound
on the definitive curve of the earth.

The brown feathers hide among the white
along the soothing ground, pricking
at the feline claws and canine teeth,
the padded paws in tactical gloves
pumping pepper in the eyes bullets
in the back and face with the finality
of magnets and machines that learn
every pattern we have made / will make,
every bet we take. Our bones are straws
for sucking marrow, assuming we’ve learned
anything at all.

We can stick our heads in cliche, or
like an ostrich into its nest dug from dirt
tapping on her egg, like a miner opening
the vein of a gleaming life that knows nothing
of our feathers nothing of our hiding,
a hatchling world that knows not hope
but all the sinews of a plan.

“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.