Birds Don't Sing, Only Cry
After Angela Carter's The Erl King
A poem by Grace Simmonds
Sing for me, my pretty singing birds. Sing!
Virgin girls’ squawk―discordant and
distressed.
Crammed inside bulging
cages, their unspoiled, naked bodies
rub together.
Panting: more. Harder. Faster!
They spread their tagged wings (crusted
and bloodied), high and wide, and flap
about in circles.
Magnificent. Spectacular.
Don’t stop!
But the littlest wails―
her wings are much too heavy for her
small body. They drop. Cooing:
My child. Why did you stop?
He scoops
the wriggling infant from the aviary
and pulls her legs apart.
There, there Baby.
He pushes in a thick finger.
POP!
Cherry blood streams―she falls
to the floor and dies. Flightless.
Sing for me, my pretty singing birds. Sing!