My folding chair’s
bare aluminum skeleton nests the next day
like the remains of a giant broken bird
in the top of a neighbor’s tree.
Amazed, ashamed gawkers stop
to say the shredded webbing strewn everywhere
tells all the story they need to hear:
I failed to sit out yet another storm —
to mind my own business, the alarms. Do I not have ears?
I quietly shake rain off fallen limbs.
Brian Beatty is the author of two recent poetry collections, Brazil, Indiana (Kelsay Books, 2017) and Coyotes I Couldn’t See (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2016). His writing has also been featured in public art projects and on public radio. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.