We The Roost
We rise, our nest dappled with first light
spool into the day wings tendriled mid-air
moneying as we must but never as we might
have monied had we less fruit to produce,
had we less eggs to hatch, had we more fear
of flight. When we go out, we meet in a mass
of multifocal murmuration mid-sky, in time
for rush hour traffic to tune into our togethering
transcendent by turns and then scattering, random,
like ashes, like sun through a crack in the covering.
We peck at our pick of the leftovers, a constellation
of coin-collecting — enough. Then, we set the table
for our true feast: each feather shed over the day woven
into a quilt for the night — roosting into so much nothing.
Bionocular
The cat hunches on the sill pensively
as if rain has become a spectator sport.
These days, you gotta pay good money
for a seat this close. Price tags drape
from boughs of native plants at the nursery
like handmade ornaments on the family
Christmas tree. Who’s adorning who.
Who’s adoring who? The weeds tilt
their heads back in utter awe, say ahhhh,
catch drops on their mother tongues,
catch wind of where to ride the rain next,
their highway of invasion undulating
beneath my palliative perennial perspective.
It’s dangerous out there, and I’m feeling
protective, but it’s too wet for weeding.
So I pull up a chair next to the cat,
where we can both keep an eye
on this winnowing world.
