Ellen Welcker

STEREOSCOPE

"everything turns away / Quite leisurely from the disaster" -W.H. Auden
"Could I be the disaster?" -Srikanth Reddy

it is basically horrible
to write a poem about birds

people roll their eyes
& you're all "no, no, they can't..."

& "that's what's amazing..."
the important thing is

coo coo blink blink
breathe here

now again
the important thing is

you know they can't turn away
their eyes, their side-eyes

they just have to see it
& go blind

Ellen Welcker is a poet and co-facilitator of Scablands Lit, an organization that supports writers in the Inland Northwest. Recent poems are in Dusie, Willow Springs, and small po[r]tions. She is the author of several chapbooks and a full-length collection, The Botanical Garden (Astrophil Press, 2010).