deserter's_songs raze all his men will abandon him. so he's told. so he knows. when the battle begins, he cranes his neck and watches as they become birds in the sky. pigeons, geese, or gulls. it matters not. alone, he hides under steep stairs. a tube of heavy paper in one hand and a wordless prayer in the other. he trades the cardboard for two baseballs bats and waits to be butchered by marching knives with eyes. when all seems lost, his avian deserters return with blood on their beaks and sixteen syllables of song to dispense. each sapphire syrinx a woodwind robbed of its reeds. every trill and chirp a piecemeal poem. 260215 what's it to you? who go blather from