Click play below to listen to a reading of this poem by the author.
He looked
straight into me,
through glinting brass bars,
head tilted almost coyly
to one side,
a voice
not his own
Please don’t hit me.
Please stop…
Please stop…
And the sound of a blow,
its clarity unreal.
And then the entire cycle
again.
And again.
And I wondered
how the bird came to be
in a place like this,
alone.
And how many times
it had to hear something
in order to repeat it
with such fidelity.