Melinda Thomsen
Free Birds
Things just couldn’t be the same.
—Lynyrd Skynard
A cardinal skirted upon the edge
of a marble fountain in Athens, Ohio
His flaming tail feathers flared
to the water beat as he bent to sip.
Suddenly, he dashed from the park,
leaving the four tiered spray net behind.
When a shopping center in Rome closed,
dozens of freed ring necked parakeets
found refuge in nearby Caffarella Park.
These exotics chatter, flash lime pinions,
and breed in the holes of trunks. Move
over, pigeons, for the neon urban birds.
See the monk parakeets thriving in haystack
nests on utility poles in Brooklyn?
Birding tourists snap away at these fancier
airport shipping crate escapees.
Even when the Pope released two
Doves of Peace from the Apostolic Palace,
the faithful cheered until a seagull swooped
down, and pinned one dove to a wall.
A hooded crow trapped the other
on a window sill, and pecked it ruthlessly.
Downy flanks and small frames signaled
easy prey, but by flapping arched wings
these two wrangled from claws,
leaving bloodied beaks gnashing.
Melinda Thomsen is the author of Naming Rights (Finishing Line Press, ) and Field Rations (Finishing Line Press, ). Her poems have appeared in Stone Coast Review, Tar River Poetry, The Comstock Review, and North Carolina Literary Review, among other journals. She is an advisory editor for Tar River Poetry and teaches composition at Pitt Community College in North Carolina.
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