Sunday, January 28, 2024

JOHN GALLAHER—"THE IDEA OF COMMUNITY " (Issue 27)

THE IDEA OF COMMUNITY 

In the cartoon version, the protagonist is left in charge of a baby 
who is in some fashion courting disaster. It’s accident prone. It’s a maniac. 
And the little creature’s delivered, last second, back safe 
like nothing’s happened. Perhaps the protagonist, by this time, 
is heavily bandaged or smoldering, Tom & Jerry version, Daffy Duck 
version. In the Chick Avenue version, 
I put the dogs out to run, and hear a parent bird going crazy 
before I see what’s going on. A little bird, not yet able to fly, 
is in Daisy’s mouth. I do the “make angry face 
and shout DROP IT” routine, and Daisy drops it, flopping 
and spinning in the grass. I shoo the dogs into the house, 
and go to see to the bird. I hate days like this. 

I’m trying to be positive about life cycles. My father’s in his 90s, 
declining. It’s God’s machinery, but what exactly 
am I supposed to do with some flopping, mostly dead thing? 
It turns out though, that the bird isn’t dead. A bit of a limp, but otherwise, 
looking steady-ish. Except it can’t stay in the yard. This 
is the dog yard. The parent bird is still going nuts above us. 
It’s a standoff. And I’m not convinced that evolution has done a good job 
with birds. My father called the other night. Actually, I called him, 
but halfway through the conversation, he said 
                                                                        the reason he called me 
was to find out how things are going, and I didn’t correct him. 
That’s how things are going. The nest is twenty feet up. That’s also 
how things are going. So the best I can do is usher the bird 
to the other side of our fence. I’m helping things along. Here you go, 
little bird, on your way. And the thing about cartoons 
is that even in cartoons 
                                    death intrudes, with bigger and bigger fish, 
in sequence, emergent phenomena swallowing each other. 
Baby birds don’t know these things. Parent birds aren’t equipped, so 
before I’m even into the house, the little bird is into the road. 
Busy road. And then it’s a car, just like that. 35mph. And 
the parent bird is no longer carrying on and the day grows quiet.



ABOUT THE POET 

John Gallaher's forthcoming collection is My Life in Brutalist Architecture 
(Four Way Books 2024). He lives in northwest Missouri and co-edits Laurel 
Review.



ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 


We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an 
opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of 
poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors 
from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to 
hear it.

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