Psst, Bird Cam


Wish I'd noticed you hiding there,
but I had the urge to lay. Now
I have four eggs and an audience
worldwide. I'd hoped to finish
The Sun Also Rises before they hatched.
Can't now, watched by a thousand
googly eyes expecting me to sit here
staring vacantly ahead. Spinoza was so
wrong: nature is not satisfied with little.
Are human needs a higher order than mine?
I think not! “Bird brain” is our ruse
to avoid the fate of hurdy-gurdy monkeys
and dancing bears. Where'd I be
if I couldn't hum a little Schubert
as I sit idle for the lens? Oh look,
they're saying, the bird must be thirsty.
See its beak opening and closing?
Idiots. They have no idea that
each time I stretch my wing, just so,
and tip my head, ditto,
I am flipping them off.





Dinosaur Love or Boom Baby Boom


Once they passed
in high school halls,
desire stretching their clothes.

Now they pass
in hospital halls
stomachs overshadowing
hormones but

desire's droop is mere
subterfuge they offer their children
who find it hard

to imagine dinosaur love,
great saggy shanks and
spandex-scarred stomachs
pressing ecstatically together.





Summer's Dream


Whisker to whisker at the solarium window
old man and nursing home cat

bumblebees in the hollyhocks
hummingbirds sipping the sweet peas

greens brilliant
yellows jaunty
orange koi flashing in the pool

Blue morning glories
climb the white picket fence--
a red cardinal, pausing there--

not so high
a stealthy cat
wouldn't
have a
shot

or a boy
drunk on summer
couldn't leap it
on his way 
to positively forever.