The Starlings Were You
Robert Okaji
Morning was a jaundiced memory,
a burnished smear on the kettle
shrilling its warning. Another
prayer siphoned into oblivion.
As when I became in winter
an old man, frail and unclothed,
tending to his barren trees.
The starlings at the feeder were you.
And the black ice in the alley.
How frightening it was to be
so incomplete, so ready. Now
I gather warmth and tinder, place
them in the box, surrendering myself.
What will you do next, I ask. What.
AUDIO
Listen to Robert Okaji read “The Starlings Were You.”
This poem was selected as the winner of the Shō Poetry Prize for Shō No. 6.
Read about the Shō Poetry Prize here, or view past recipients and honorees.
Robert Okaji served without distinction in the U.S. Navy, and once owned a bookstore. He has been diagnosed with late stage metastatic lung cancer, and lives, for the time being, in Indiana with his wife—poet Stephanie L. Harper—stepson, and cat. He is the author of His Windblown Self (Broadstone Books, 2025) and Our Loveliest Bruises (3: A Taos Press, Fall 2024). His poetry may be found in Louisiana Literature, Threepenny Review, ONLY POEMS, Wildness, Panoply, Vox Populi, Evergreen Review, Boston Review, The Big Windows Review, Shō Poetry Journal, Indianapolis Review, Verse Daily, and elsewhere.
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