Published in The Santa Clara Review
“We are all born despots, from the most absolute monarch in Asia to the infant who smothers a bird with its hand for the pleasure of seeing that there exists in the world a being weaker than itself.” – Joseph de Maistre
If I smother this chickling,
if I snap its wings like I snap
dry twigs under my foot and crush
its bones under the pressure of my own–
much larger and thicker and swimming
in more blood–would it not be a terrible
reminder that this bird, now limp
and dreaming in my hands, is stronger
than I? If a dying bird screeches,
might that not be considered a song?
Jaden Fong 