Bird Shit At Dusk
Shilo Niziolek
In Italy it is supposed to be good luck or a good sign when a bird shits on you. When I was a child in the heat of Wyoming summers, we would set up a tent in the side yard of our trailer and camp out under the fathomless western sky. On the few nights my mom wasn’t working, trying to provide for three children on her own, she would read to us, and on one such camp-yard night we laid in the grass, poking out from the jaws of the tent opening. A flock of birds flew overhead and I turned my face of childhood wonder toward the clouds at which point one of the flock released a cannon ball of shit into my eye and on to my 26
