#3

"from the potbellied streets of dawn"

all child's play destroyed
them, pelleted with words—

for birds it is always wartime.

find shagbark out in
flyboy towns—
                          way out,

like a Catskills hospice;
sanatorium in shale,

           where all birds must go.

birds that have hot flashes,
pandemonium

                       dream-compartments

bum-rush the sandpit
& volcano into
                darkness—

hoarding "solid ground,"
shift bodies under bosoms, then fly.

f minor in the courtyard, singing
Greensleeves was all my joy—

straitjacket laden with worm-bits
blades, skeins

                         a flower.