Samantha Vargas
I once met a vegetarian who had no problem shooting starlings that flew over her father’s vineyard. They’re pests she said. You’re a fucking pest I told her. I didn’t really say this. Poor starlings, poor starlings. Birds made of galaxy dust and star things and empty bones and songs of meat and farms and fresh eggs and tears do birds cry help please don’t shoot me? I often think of starlings when I hear about school shootings. Little boys and girls, clipped wings, dying behind cupboards hidden by teachers. They are made of glitter and paste and cork like the bulletin boards. Speckled red paint spilled from little hearts like sweet valentines. Dr. Seuss wrote about them, he did. Chick with bricks come. Chicks with blocks come. Chicks with bricks and blocks come. Bang bang bang. Chicks kill. Chicks kill starlings. Little starlings crying. But we haven’t finished the ending to that book yet. The Dr. Seuss books have been gathering dust for a while now in the corner of the classroom, the bedroom, the bathroom. The bathtub is empty. Mothers sit, knees still. They cannot read to clean water.
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Samantha Vargas is a queer poet and educator who lives in New Jersey. She received her master’s degree in English education and a creative writing certificate from Rutgers University. Her work has been featured in Carolina Muse, The Night Heron Barks, Ruby, Inside Voice, The Knight’s Library Magazine, and The Imaginate, and her work was nominated for Sundress Publications’ Best of the Net anthology in 2023 for prose and poetry. She teaches middle school language arts.