New Acquisitions Emily Sorg Fifty-dollars were spent on canaries for the excited patients: Hallway guards with feathers.Yellow for their happiness. Jaundiced for the time being but not once the singing started. In a coal mine, canaries die before humans are hurt. Blame it on a fast metabolism, a weak heart. (I read it in an article once, (see also: wild canary, see also: birdcage. It takes one to know one, (one whose perch is a pocket, barred off from the sky whose grasp is a metal twig, suspended by design, whose noise is a squeak when un-oiled, forgotten whose hollow body makes a soft thump when it hits the inevitable floor.
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