John Cullen 

The Difficulty of Listening

​My neighbor’s angry in her driveway. 
Bird droppings dot her windshield, and she faces
the great difficulty of cleaning it off
without soiling her hands and risking
infection from the little white berry.
Her son hunches in the car, trying to squeeze
his body into his cellphone and live
forever inside a text recording his feelings.
Her husband insists they need a clean sweep.
His plan, he confided one night over beers
by the gas grill, involves living his passion
by opening a seed bank on the west coast of Niihau.
They would be the 170th plus persons on the island.
Eventually, she speeds away to drop her son
at school, then off to Macy’s, where she dresses
mannequins to announce the newest fashions.
Her husband’s hunched in the basement
scouring Youtube videos about coconut propagation.
I’m on the deck with a mug of black coffee
and a complaining prostate trying to identify
bird songs. So many people strain for nuance,
sometimes we forget the basics. Struggling
with my book of songs, I’m failing already.
I can barely distinguish one finch
from the next as they hop like grace notes
from one bar of the feeder to another.

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John Cullen graduated from SUNY Geneseo and worked in the entertainment business booking rock bands, a clown troupe, and an R-rated magician. Currently he teaches at Ferris State University and has had work published in American Journal of Poetry, The MacGuffin, Harpur Palate, North Dakota Quarterly and other journals. His chapbook, TOWN CRAZY, is available from Slipstream Press.