Before Serenity Park these birds
self-mutilated: featherpluck, bloodbeak,
broken. Through the compound
a veteran runs the damaged birds:
You’re flying! You’re flying!
Though this lorikeet will never fly again,
tangle of birdskin and buzzsaw,
it flaps as if complicit in the ruse.
A marine lines with battered birds
his wheelchair. The tank gunner
an expert on sunflower seeds given
from lips to curving beaks.
The parrots know who’s who and have
their favorites. One loves a sailor.
A macaw sings only for Jim.
The sulfur-crested cockatoo
chooses the helicopter pilot:
Never has a bird let me down.
One parrot spends each morning
yelling Shut up or else!
in the only cage the vets
won’t approach before noon.
These birds are hurting,
Matt says, his good arm
sweeping the whole of the park.
Some vets won’t talk unless
a bird’s close by. Some clean
the aviary, weeping. Some parrots
can’t be with another bird, consider
themselves human, or near enough.
