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On Birds and Poison
Misha Tentser
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L*STS: an Essay Daily Happening | About & Contents
Lists | Lasts | Losts | Lusts | Other
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Saturday morning, Beth called to ask if I wanted to go birding at the wildlife refuge west of Syracuse. Beth was the elderly landlady of my hovel, where I drank until my vision fuzzed. I didn’t set anything on fire or host raucous parties. I sat crisscross on my bed and turned my misery inward, which demanded plastic jugs of Kentucky Deluxe from the corner liquor store. A boy-faced man named Ralph owned and operated the liquor store, the last extant business in a strip mall on the city’s West Side.
Beth didn’t know about my drinking, which I preferred. When she called, I thought it’d be more suspicious if I declined. So she scooped me up in her Jetta booming Hall & Oates’ “Crime Pays” and zoomed the back roads to the refuge. In her car, the AC wheezed, pumping sticky August air flavored with mango freshener. I was drunk enough to imagine the wispy clouds on the horizon as smoke tendrils from God’s curly pipe. I wasn’t drunk enough to feel like a subject of the divine.
Beth explained the cardinal birding rule, that the birds’ wellbeing came before the birder’s desire to photograph, record, or gawk. I’d never birded with rules before. Last summer, I’d spotted a crow on its side, motionless in the grass at a park across from the Erie Canal. I dribbled some water onto its beak to confirm its aliveness. The crow’s eyes moved slowly in their sockets.
Beth parked. She and I ambled down a board walk overlooking a swamp packed with geese. We sat down on a bench. Beth pulled binoculars from her bag and searched the landscape for a juicier character like an eagle or heron. Too hot for them today, she said. What do we do? I asked. Nothing, she said, wait.
I felt Hall’s baritone and synths bounce around my skull. I watched the geese preen and wiggle their necks. I recalled picnicking with my parents by a scummy pond, where a goose mom chased me and bit my butt cheek. I was six and unacquainted with keeping my distance. The goose bite bloomed into a royal welt, which I showed off at school in the boy’s bathroom for my friends. Every time I saw a goose since then, my butt cheek stung in recognition.
I thought my drunkenness might wane after forty minutes of sitting with Beth. Instead, it rippled into my extremities, which started to spasm. I tucked my hands into my jean pockets, but my lips pulsed. Beth stared out at the swamp.
After three years of sobriety, I’d convinced myself I could drink casually. I started again with good bourbon, which delivered a warm burn to my esophagus. Eventually, the burn disappeared and I couldn’t afford the fancy whiskey regularly. I didn’t understand what precipitated my desire to drink again. A relapse of malaise, maybe. A desire to self-sedate?
You ok? Beth asked. Yes… I said, it’s lush. And it was. Sun beamed through the cirrus clouds onto water lilies and shrubs, whose green extended as far as I could see. Willows drooped into the swamp, as if bowing to the water. It’s true, she said. She packed away her binoculars and we walked back to her car.
On the drive home, groves of trees shot past us on the country road. At home, I waited by the window until I saw Beth’s car pull away, then walked to the liquor store. I wanted to bask in the cool air and wine fridge lights. The fridge’s glow beamed onto my hand skin and exposed my winding nerves. The wine called to me. The whiskey did too. I stared the bottles down until they blurred and danced.
Ralph didn’t watch me linger. He watched a horse race on his phone and twirled his mustache hairs. I considered buying some shooters and drinking in the park, beside the aqueduct where ducks gathered. But Ralph’s face, soft and oval, gleamed like my mom’s. I bought a single scratch-off. On Ralph’s t-shirt, an embroidered golden eagle head stared me down.
I wondered about flight. One spring, when I flew to Syracuse in a tiny Cessna, the pilot pointed out a skein of sandhill cranes soaring beside the plane. I was concerned the cranes would get sucked into the Cessna’s propeller, but they glided gracefully, then vanished. I didn’t know when, precisely, the birds merged with the night, or if they took a left turn towards some wetlands to rest, then nest. From my window, the cranes looked like bloodied arrows.
My apartment’s porch steps creaked under my sneakers. By the front door, I sat in the rocking chair left behind by the previous tenant. The chair’s frayed cane poked my glutes. Cars rumbled down my street and sizzling garlic scent wafted from a neighbor’s open kitchen window. Sweat gathered in the ditches of my knees. I scratched the tinny lotto film with a quarter until the symbols came into focus. I won nothing. I kept scratching until the symbols faded too.
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This essay is about the last morning I drank booze, two and a half years ago. I don’t have a soft spot for birds or landlords, but I value the suggestion that attentiveness is an act of generosity towards self and others. My current apartment in Syracuse has gorgeous, tall windows. From my desk, I’ve seen groundhogs, cardinals, possums, and a skunk. The skunk was the size of a kid’s tricycle. I think he was benevolent.
Misha Tentser is a poet from Tucson, Arizona. His poems and essays have appeared in Puerto del Sol, The Adroit Journal, Yalobusha Review, and on North Country Public Radio. Misha's first book, American Loon, is forthcoming from Burnside Review Press in 2027. He teaches writing in Syracuse, New York.
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