The Scrub Jay

Found amid dry lowlands
along the Pacific seaboard
where no one ever doused the sand in sunflower seeds
during mornings bereft of peanuts,
when it rained water and
not snacks delivered by an Instacart driver,
this natural bird persisted

Despite an absence of lazy 11am cooing
couched in obscenities directed at the family,
the California scrub jay did not go extinct
it perched on

the Norwegian brown rat, however,
also known as the roof rat for its keen ability to climb
burrowed beneath the sidewalks
and emigrated to a nearby neighborhood
as soon as
pellets of store-packaged handouts disappeared
in an apocalyptic event
that the scrub jays could only describe as
…some other day
when that lady wasn’t there