Poem

Lost Cockatiel

/ /

Of helplessness, arrogance, you must make a new
home in the cold, un-abiding willow. Your life’s come to
(as if lifted like a princess from a coma of radiant heat,
a coo, someone who fed and loved you) catastrophe.
How you swung in your cage, caressed with cracked tongue
your nails. What rhythm of days flown, too.
You look right fragile in the green, will not return from
that asylum to your weeping mother. No
bread crumb nor whistle will fetch you. Tortured as an artist’s
subject, you’ve flown to nature morte from another
story. You don’t belong in this crowded world, formal
feathers torn at your throat, blood on your cheek.
Naïve as a sunrise, exposed as grapes in a Marais stall,
as you bathe in terror, wake in terror, let your mind fly back
to the bars, the peace lived there, in heaven’s interior.