The starlings can’t be counted. As they move
like a wave from the ash to the maple, I forget
my empty check boxes and calendars, my own
approaching migration. As they settle,
deaf to the tick of their temporary state,
I’m reminded to stop counting
kicks and pounds, weeks and days, changes
in a tiny heart’s rate — numbers too laden
with worry, too separate from a truth
I should know, not calculate, too open
to misinterpretation by people in plastic
who will tell me what to do, my body assumed
to move less like the ocean and more like the water
heated within an old radiator. I feel aches
and sputters and clicks in the bones of my aging
house. Resigned, I have stopped counting
money spent on oil. I only listen for the lurch
of hot steam through iron pipes, soothed
by its reassurance that we will survive
this winter’s waiting.
The starlings inside me have settled
for now, balanced on my heart’s thin branches.
–
Elizabeth Birch lives in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Her poetry has been featured in the Yellow Arrow Journal, The Tiger Moth Review, Nixes Mate, Writers Resist, Willows Wept Review, Stirring, Third Wednesday, Portrait of New England, The Orchards Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. You can find her on Instagram and Facebook at ebirchpoetry.
© 2025, Elizabeth Birch
Halfway Down the Stairs 