hiccups - Ayin Es

this morning I watched a crow on a telephone wire

act strangely

I’m pretty sure he had the hiccups

there was no other explanation

I thought about my time here

and how lovely it’s been

watching birds

making art

until our landlady forced us out

she grew to hate my girlfriend

there was no other reasonable explanation

we were going to retire to the desert anyway

so it’s time to go

I wonder now

if the birds will miss me

will I miss the birds?

the crows will turn to ravens

stray cats to coyote

and more of an abundance of birds

I’ll get to know them there

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Ayin Es is a writer, artist, and musician from Los Angeles who identifies as nonbinary or genderqueer. They have written for the Huffington Post, Whitehot Magazine, and Coagula Art Journal. Published with Bottle of Smoke Press, Islands Fold, Chance Press, Lunch Ticket, and Santa Ana River Review, their Artist’s books are also featured in the Getty Research Library, Brooklyn Museum, National Museum of Women in the Arts, and many other prominent collections. Awarded grants in writing from the National Arts and Disability Center, Asylum Arts in Brooklyn, NY, Ayin also won the Bruce Geller Memorial Award from the American Jewish University in 2019. They are currently working on their second novel, “Queer as Mud.”