The Radio Animals

The radio animals travel in lavender
clouds. They are always chattering, they
are always cold. Look directly at the
buzzing blur and you'll see twitter, hear
flicker—that's how much they ignore the
roadblocks. They're rabid with doubt.
When a strong sunbeam hits the cloud,
the heat in their bones lends them a
temporary gravity and they sink to the
ground. Their little thudding footsteps
sound like "Testing, testing, 1 2 3" from a
far-away galaxy. Like pitter and its petite
echo, patter. On land, they scatter into
gutters and alleyways, pressing their
noses into open Coke cans, transmitting
their secrets to the silver circle at the
bottom of the can. Of course we've wired
their confessionals and hired a translator.
We know that when they call us Walkie
Talkies they mean it scornfully, that they
disdain our in and outboxes, our tests of
true or false.

--Matthea Harvey