‘THEY WERE SINGERS’
Tinamarie Cox lives in Arizona with her husband, two children, and rescue felines. Her written and visual work has appeared in many online and print publications under various genres. Her artwork has been on the covers of Full House Literary, Soft Star Magazine, Heimat Review, In Short, and others. Follow her on socials @tinamariethinkstoomuch and explore more of her work at tinamariethinkstoomuch.weebly.com.
THEY WERE SINGERS
She lived at the far end of the hall.
She was old and bent and we loved her.
No one knew her name. We knew her
as the woman who lived in a room of birds.
Each morning she would sing to them.
They, of course, would sing back to her.
She sang different songs.
They, of course, sang back in different songs.
But they were the same.
They were singers.
When the old and bent woman died
we removed her possessions and donated them.
Each morning the birds would sing back
to no one there, to nothing there.
In our unmusical rooms, we heard them.
Despite our determination to wrap things
up, as the things of the dead must be wrapped
up, we could not bring ourselves
to net them, upset them, forget them.
The way they sang in her room, those birds.
Glenn Kletke's work can be found in 'Whistle For Jellyfish' and in the form anthology, 'In Fine Form' where he pioneered the framed glosa.
