In her 80s, she limps outside yelling, clapping her hands
to shoo birds from loquat trees.
They wake her
from a dream
about Uncle John,
who, in 1989 came
home from the hospital.
On his birthday.
Aunt Nini cooked him
breakfast just before
she found him face down
on the carpet.
Croaked.
In her dream, Uncle John
comes back dancing
in his underwear,
playing Roll Out the Barrel on his harmonica. It’s 1942.
They’re so young standing
near the Cyclone
in Coney Island.
Your crazy uncle always
made me laugh, she says.
But before she can hug him
the birds kill the music.
Uncle John stops dancing.
She wakes, goes outside
in her see-through nightgown
scaring the shit out
of the birds. Her neighbors
call the cops. Aunt Nini,
they’re gonna lock you up
for disturbing the peace,
I tell her. Me?, she yells, what about the fucking crows?

Lenny DellaRocca is founding editor and former publisher of South Florida Poetry Journal. He’s the author of five poetry collections. He was interviewed by Grace Cavalieri for The Poet and the Poem on NPR and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net . He has invented the Epoem a new form on display at his new poetry journal, Witchery, which is embedded online at South Florida Journal.