By Kevin Grauke
Featured Art: “Santa Cronica” by Gabriela Denise Frank

I hate how bored I am now by robins, 
but so many appear here each April and May, 
as the green reveals. Little redbreasts in leafing 
trees, little redbreasts hopping on the sprouting  
soil. In their ubiquity, they rival dun sparrows, 
but they deserve more, our heralds of spring, 
though I do wish their inspiration to sing might 
come a little later than right before first light.  
I once saw them mostly in Little Golden Books, 
with delicate worms curlicuing from their beaks, 
but now I read nothing but memos and reports, 
where no birds flutter. Mornings find me grid- 
locked, caffeinating, listening to new bad news. 
From above, they shit on me intermittently.  

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Kevin Grauke has published poems in The Threepenny Review, The Cincinnati Review, The Minnesota Review, Ninth Letter, and The Louisville Review, amongst others. He is the author of the short-story collections Shadows of Men and West of Destry, and a third short-story collection, Bullies & Cowards, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in late 2026. He teaches at La Salle University and lives in Philadelphia.