by Grace Bauer

It was finally, thank God—Spring

and I was happy to have the birds

here—but not, exactly, there

in that elbow of the drainpipe

just below my front porch roof,

just above the spot in the driveway

where I always park my car. So for two days

I did my best to dissuade the robin

from her nesting choice. Armed with a broom

and a slightly guilty conscience,

I battled to defend my paltry turf.

She’d pile up a bit of grass and I would

knock it down. She’d pile. I’d knock.

And she’d pile, and I’d do what I had

convinced myself I had to do to shield myself

from the shit I knew from experience

would fly if she settled in for the season.

Look at all the trees at your disposal! I’d yell,

as if my human chatter could translate into bird.

How about the side of the garage?

(which I would have happily conceded).

I assume she finally mistook my insistent destruction

as the work of wind, or some other element

she had no language for (at least no language

I could decipher), for she finally took up residence

in an oak out near the curb, beyond the property I claim

as mine, an abode I pronounced more amenable to us both.

Still, as spring progressed and various chirpings

commenced in the boughs above me, my Civic

was spattered daily with white droppings I wiped off,

again and again, accepting the fact that shit happens,

despite our best, or worst, efforts to keep it at bay.

Grace Bauer has published six books of poems—most recently, Unholy Heart: New & Selected Poems. She also co-edited the anthology, Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology Of Subversive Verse. Her poems, essays, stories, and reviews have been widely published in journals and anthologies.