The Ancient Flocks Of Wilson Street Poem by Bill Cushing

They flock
to the park
cloaked in black,
perched on benches in the Winter sun,
the bills of their ball caps, like beaks,
dip in and out.

Like grackles
surrounding bread crumbs,
the ancient Armenians
ease their emotional baggage—
too young to remember
but old enough to recall those
who lived through
or died from
the Turkish carnage.
Surrounding the tables
filled with scattered dominoes,
on Christmas eve,
the old men chatter
about the old country
and its new destruction,
moving and
connecting
the ivory bones
with brittle fingers.

This little plot is now
their patch of earth,
and as
territorial
as chastising mocking birds,
they chase strangers
from the grounds,
children
from weathered monkey bars.