THE ADMINISTRATION

by Susan Martell Huebner

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

At the kitchen table watching the birds,

a normal comfort, seeing them fly, flit, feed.

 

Jay lands on seed tray, all command blue,

tail feathers angled upward in smart salute.

 

Finches wearing winter beiges swerve

and weave, perch on metal crooks, chittering warnings.

 

Downy woodpecker's folded flat, composed

against the peanut tube, eyeing the suet lock.

 

I drink my coffee, extra cream, admiring

their careless freedom, unworried song

 

when Coopers Hawk threatens overhead

and each bird freezes.

 

On this side of the window, a sharp inhale.

I understand the instinct.

Susan Martell Huebner lives and writes in Mukwonago WI. Her work has appeared in many online and print journals. She writes across the genres. Find her printed work at Finishing Line Press, Kelsay Publications, and Amazon.

SMALL DIFFERENCES

by Moira Magneson

AI-generated image by Shutterstock for The New Verse News.

Three days

we've watched

the acorn

woodpecker

perched atop

the telephone

pole

bright red

crown

black beak

driving

into

the glass

insulator

over and over.

His fury

for the bird

who looks

just like him—

side-eye

glittering—

knows

no bounds.

He refuses

to give up

the fight

with his own

reflection.

He will win 

this war.

He will not 

surrender.

Each will hammer

the other down.

They will stop

at nothing.

Author’s Note: "Small Differences" addresses the June 12, 2024 Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel which came after Israel killed a senior Hezbollah commander in southeastern Lebanon in a June 11 airstrike.  The poem's title is based on Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic concept of “the narcissism of small differences" in which he proposes that people tend to amplify the minor differences between themselves, leading to feelings of hostility, estrangement, and contempt.

Moira Magneson's full-length collection of poems In the Eye of the Elephant will be published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2025. Her novella A River Called Home—a river fable illustrated by Robin Center was released by Toad Road Press in early 2024. She is currently working as the poet-in-residence for ForestSong, artist Andie Thrams' project exploring solastalgia, biophilia, and resilience in the face of wildfire devastation and the climate crisis.