COUNSELOR: Poetry Crisis Line, what is your emergency?
CALLER: there’s a bluebird in my heart that / wants to get out
COUNSELOR: Literally? Or is that a metaphor? Or, like, a simile?
CALLER: but I’m too tough for him,
COUNSELOR: It’s OK. You can admit if your heart is fluttering.
CALLER: I say, stay in there,
COUNSELOR: So you recognize that you want him there?
CALLER: I’m not going / to let anybody see / you.
COUNSELOR: So you’ve made a birdhouse in your soul, but it’s on the down-low?
Read the rest of “bluebird” by Charles Bukowski here.