“The Stone Menagerie” by Daniel Jenkins (poetry ’18)
An excerpt from “The Stone Menagerie” by Daniel Jenkins (poetry ’18), published by Maryland Literary Review.
The Stone Menagerie
In Tanzania,
a thesaurus of birds
perch stiffly, petrified
by the alkaline slime
of Lake Natron.
These avian stones,
these strands of hide and rough-twine
wide-fanning feathers:
Calcified cranes, sparrows
chewed to paste, finches hardened
to chalk, a hawk’s ghostly wing.
