Todd Osborne
Letter Written in St. Augustine
John J. Audubon wished he could fly
above people like you and me and watch
as he dropped feces onto our heads.
I read that in an obscure journal of his
housed in the local college. The town's
namesake wished we would all be as birds—
singing Hallelujahs all day and sleeping
all night in our robes and tonsures. I called you,
looking out on waters you saw every day
and resented for their persistence. Going out
and returning. How tiring that must be.
You couldn't imagine a life lived like that. Migratory,
drawing on the wild, and letting that be enough.
Bio
Todd Osborne currently lives in Hattiesburg, MS, where he is pursuing a PhD at the University of Southern Mississippi. His poems have appeared in Hobart, Noble/Gas Quarterly, Juked, and elsewhere.