from THE BIRD ARTIST
In the afternoon, we empty the cages. It's all seed and shit, but the feathers
are so soft between my fingers. The bones so fragile as I set them in teacups
one by one. What fun when we'd chase them through the house,
the top of the drapes where they'd wait. Once, my mother opened a window
and a pair of finches went missing for days, turned up in a town hours away.
Who can say what distances we travel while everyone else sleeps in the house.
How many times I carried them to the garden and begged them to go. But every morning,
hungry on the ledge. They'd roll over and over in the dirt. Sip the tiny bits of water
in a bowl. I'd wrap the cages carefully in towels at dusk and they'd quiet,
but still I could hear them cooing softly in the dark. The world circumscribed
by need and even the trees so far from the house. We could never imagine
making it there before night or hunters got us.
Our hearts stopped, so tiny in our chests.
