Can you hear the birds singing?
Outside the window, they brave
the bite of the winter night,
calling out over the hills.
Their notes fill the still quiet
of your room, and harmonize
over your breath in the gray
dark before dawn. It’s two birds,
or maybe three, perhaps lost
to their flock, like the one that
soared over my aunt’s house all
those years ago. Several
minutes I stood in the cold
expanse of her corner lawn
and watched them sweep overhead
against the paling autumn
sky. Soon they thinned, and only
a few remained, forever
chasing the flock’s fading cloud.
Perhaps the birds who perform
this morning have given up
the chase, and instead they wait
for the frigid dawn, greeting
the sun as its rays slip through
the shades to grace your skin as
you sleep.
Malina Infante is a junior English: Creative Writing and Educational Studies double major at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. Outside of her coursework, she serves as an English Department Fellow as well as a Teaching Assistant for various Introduction to Creative Writing and Advanced Poetry Writing courses. Over the summer of 2022, she completed an intensive 10-week creative project focused on drafting a literary fantasy novel under the direction of Dr. Peter Grandbois. She has recently been refunded to continue that work with Dr. Margot Singer in the coming summer of 2023. After graduation, she is hopeful to pursue an MFA in either Poetry or Fiction and hopes to one day teach high school English.