And one day, Michael accepted that a yard cluttered with
disemboweled home appliances, rotten tires, warped dimension lumber, and
tumbleweeds hugging everything was exactly what he always wanted.
This epiphany struck Michael as he dragged the crumpled fender
from a Ford F-150 across one last patch of open lawn.
A flock of starlings dislodged
as he neared a dark stack of tires. He
watched the flock of birds lift, ripple into the sky, swing across the street, turn
inside out as a whole, and alight in a white birch tree in his neighbor’s yard.
“Pussy birds,” he muttered.
Just like his neighbors, the pussy birds were always fussing and
complaining.
Michael appreciated eagles and hawks. A
raptor. That’s a bird, Michael thought.
“You stay over there,” he admonished the birds in an elevated
voice.
Michael propped the fender inside-out against the tires. Inside-out so the lighter side faced his neighbors
across the street like a stark, unblinking beacon in a free yard in a free country.
—Mitchell Hegman
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