Advice for the birds

Everything you were told in childhood was wrong;

the dusty artifacts misfiled, the map of the badlands.

misinterpreted, and you, on century-farm Saturdays,

collared to the television, the day stretched out in cereal boxes

that found your name too long to personalize.

Feather and claw batted the cage of your true no-self.

Writing out dumb assignments in your cursive,

you saw the window but not the flight path.

Now I stroke you, feathered thing, and brood in your nest:

all the names they gave you may you shed like the lizard

all the sky be for your comfort and what made you fragile,

be ever warm-blooded, quick-witted, your wishes baldly displayed.

https://www.spdbooks.org/Products/0888099303/zone-3-vol-31-no-1-spring-2016.aspx