Ingrid Wendt
On the Nature of Butting Heads
What could be sweeter than breakfast on the palm-fringed
veranda, so you set down your bowl of jungle fruit
and dart inside for coffee. And shit, if the Long-
Tailed Grackle hasn’t darted
faster—out of nowhere!—is pissed
you’re back before he can snatch a bite.
But does he fly away? Nope. One hop,
he’s on the stucco wall nearby,
clicks and clucks and cocks his head in your direction,
flies to the top of the wooden ramada just a few
feet farther, his rasping snare drum of a throat tracking
the seconds, his yellow eyes waiting for you
to slip up again. Never say die. And when at last
he resorts to scolding, oh my, every jet-black feather
stands on end, he plumps up twice his normal size and
a great, low roar begins, a whole-body shudder, a stomach
rumble shivering, quivering as it rises out his open beak.
Such unflagging cacophony, and all from just one mouth!
King of the morning, he thinks you’ll bow to his command.
And can you blame him, you foolish trespasser into his realm?
You, whose rental house was plopped right on top
of old-growth guanabana trees. You evil bringer and taker-
away of a pittance—a tiny pittance—of
reparation. Fruit in a bowl. And tomorrow you’ll do it again.
Ingrid We
ndt is the author of five books of poems and co-editor of two anthologies. A musician by avocation, her many distinctions include the Oregon Book Award, the Yellowglen Award, and the Carolyn Kizer Award. For more than 30 years a visiting writer at all educational levels, including the MFA Program of Antioch University, Los Angeles, she has been a three-time Fulbright professor in Germany. She received honorable mentions in the 2025 River Heron Editors’ Prize and the 2025 Robinson Jeffers Tor House Prize in Poetry. Recent poems also appear in POETRY, Terrain, APR, About Place, Wallowa, CALYX, and Cutthroat. Ingridwendt.com