by Annie Diamond

He says it sounds like dewdrops,
a bright and rounded pew pew pew,
and then I hear it. His human dupe

not meager, but contextualizing.
I see the cardinal bright as a mouth
of lipstick amid winter-colded trees.

He uses an app to divine their songs
that I call Bird Shazam.

April remains diffident, half exhaled:
after six midwestern springs, I should

expect this, but each time it surprises.
Northeastern childhood seasons more
meticulous, specific;

global warming has not helped, but
midwest flatness seems most relevant.
I have found talk of weather not

small for Chicagoans, though this might
have more to do with aging than geographies.

Feel the difference between climate and weather:
the former what we expect, the latter what we get.

Cornell Lab mimics the cardinal song as
cheer, cheer, cheer, what, what, what, what.

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Annie Diamond is an Ashkenazi Jewish poet and recovering academic who has made her home in Chicago. She has been awarded fellowships by MacDowell, Luminarts Cultural Foundation, The Lighthouse Works, and Boston University, where she earned her MFA in 2018. Her poems appear in Prairie Schooner, No Tokens Journal, Western Humanities Review, and elsewhere. She is currently working to place her debut poetry manuscript.