
To the red-winged blackbird who dive-bombs me at 6 a.m.
Bullet-train aeronaut, microwave screech.
You think you’re so hot with your stoplight epaulettes.
Such a cliché, the neighbourhood bully
everyone warns their kids about. You gad
from nest to nest, baby mama to baby mama,
flick the kids an aphid and an excuse.
Having babies doesn’t make you special.
Congratulations, your plumbing works!
And I know what you’re going to say:
they’re so big-eyed, so vulnerable, it goes so fast,
you can’t shut up about them, they-are-meeeeeeeeee!
Then I hear bright urgent squeaks
broadcast from a shaggy straw bowl.
Ravenous, rivalrous,
stiletto to the heart.
And I am such a hypocrite.
I swoop home to my sleep-fragrant nestlings
whose clementine hearts thrum ever harder,
scarcely restrained by flesh. When we walk
I fend off strange dogs, unleashed men. I press
kisses to milk-cushioned cheeks—again, again—
just once more before they fledge.