I sometimes talk
to brick and drywall
they don’t mind my weight
and my screams never
make them flinch
and like a potted plant
I lean into their light
whispering to the room
about teacups and spoons.

I always talk
to trees and flowers
tucking in their beds,
cleaning away aphids
since the birds are caged
as we commiserate
with the clouds about
global thermonuclear
weapons.

It’s not the singing
to the dishes or the
pillow talked laundry
that should scare you –
but that the birds
and I have finally
picked the locks
and are ready
to talk back.

Tamara Fricke is the 2010 co-winner of the Gertrude Claytor Award of the Academy of American Poets and is previously published by The Lyon Review, Meat for Tea, Attack Bear Press Poetry Vending Machine, Whisper and the Roar, We Will Not Be Silenced, and has been included in a number of compilations.  Her poetry chapbook Our Requiem was released in 2014.  She lives in Springfield, MA, with an ungrateful cat, where she writes grants professionally.