It’s another inside joke about privilege,
like when you’re at the zoo on coupon day
and accidently discover that a schoolmate’s
grandparents have sponsored the Ocelot Rotunda
as well as the Birds of Paradise Live Musical Encounter.
The same kid in class who wrote poems about how bad
he felt for the Mexican immigrant laborers he managed
at his family’s multi-million-dollar solar panel empire…
How rough it was to let them go when ICE came knocking.
Who carried a cat fang in his pocket and cut people with it,
mid-conversation. Who claimed nobody would care since he was
the only guy left who could take a joke these days. Who
never paid for drugs, not once!
And as you gaze, high on psilocybin, at a Splendid Astrapia,
while it garbles down sliced grapes from a bright yellow
bird feeder, mid-March in Indiana, you notice another seam
split in the fabric of reality. Out bursts a Northern Cardinal from
this green and black minstrel garb. It flies away, giving off smoke
break vibes as it shatters through the glass dome of the aviary.
The speakers play the three worst songs from Wicked repeatedly,
all day long. In the corner, an old man in a volunteer vest snores loudly
as his harmonica, rusted from saliva, hangs from his limp hand.
I refuse to buy the ticket. I should get everything for free.
John Leonard is a writer and educator who serves as editor-in-chief of Rawhead and managing editor of 42 Miles Press and The Glacier. He holds an M.A. in English from Indiana University. John's poems have been published in Chiron Review, December Magazine, North Dakota Review, Louisiana Literature, Painted Bride Quarterly, Nimrod International Journal, The Indianapolis Review, and The Emerson Review, among many others. John was the 2016 inaugural recipient of the Wolfson Poetry Award, the 2018 recipient of the Josephine K. Piercy Memorial Award, and the 2019 recipient of the David E. Albright Memorial Award and Hatfield Merit Award. His debut poetry collection is forthcoming. He lives in Elkhart, Indiana, with his wife and son.