Poetry

Breathless, in a net we captured you--
Ring around the yew tree
and threw you, bright-eyed, in a gilded cage
watched to see what would happen next: surprise!
you thrived and seemed happy enough.

At night you fluffed your feathers
and made yourself eggbig
for insulation--it was a nice trick:
warmth to your remotest toes.

The kitchen light suddenly turned on,
late, you'd be found head wedged
under your wing, asleep for a sec,
till you awoke, vigilant as ever.

Singing was not your forte. All day
instead, you belted out your one, sole note.
We'd hoped for better, but this was the
way you registered your will in the world.

That human obsession, Liberty, for you
meant, not unbridled skies
but freedom from assuault, which
though you never suffered, believed
eternally in the possibility of.

So day after day you sat tight
depending on a cuteness you didn't even know
you had to impel your keepers to
fill your twin cups with canary seed and tap water

till the moment you unaccountably
fell off the perch, dead, your rubber band
snapped or unwound or something like that,
to the gravel floor of the cage,
your belching days done,
there being no heaven for sparrows.

We fished you out, rolled you up
carefully in cheesecloth, little mummy,
and buried you in the back yard,
marking the site, never, with a cross, theless.