Birdfeeding
Tyler Robert Sheldon
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after T.R. Hummer
When it’s time, you haul the huge bag
of birdseed from the cargo hold
of your SUV and muscle it over
to the new feeder, which waits
for filling, and lift the lid and pour,
the cracked black seeds spinning
deep into the heart of the cylinder,
the light bright in the eyes of the cats
circling your feet, who’d grow wings
if only they could, too rapt to wait
for the birds who soon will come.
__________
Chai, who is present for outdoor activities, including (but not limited to) birdfeeding.
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Tyler Robert Sheldon has eight poetry collections including Words for Coffee (Spartan, 2025) and Everything is Ghosts (Finishing Line Press, 2024). He is Editor-in-Chief of MockingHeart Review and Managing Editor of Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Pop Culture and Pedagogy, and his work can be found in The Los Angeles Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Ninth Letter, Pleiades, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and other places. He earned his PhD at LSU and his MFA at McNeese State University, and he lives in Baton Rouge.
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Posted in Third Annual Pet Writing Contest and tagged in #boudin, #poetry, Poetry