All we’ve lost is the space to fly,
but we still have wings in here.
We’re still loud and yellow-wild
if you can just see us
past the miles of glass.
We sit and watch the birds whirl their wings
in tight circles, never pushing past the glass—
like us, windswept men
trapped in wheelchairs and deafness.
We sit and watch the birds speak for us.
None of us knew each other back when
we carried our own
brash speech and quick feet,
so we learn each other’s lives by
watching these reruns playing out
behind the screen:
Paula, sweet and soft,
always landed with precision;
Don was the kind to rise and sing
when everyone else fell from the sky.
We’re watching the birds
when our children come
and speak a language we no longer know,
high-speed streams of data and questions
flecked with petulance when we repeat,
sit and watch the birds with us,
sit and watch the birds.
They look away and frown their faces
into lines that will solidify
in a couple of decades.
They think our souls have already flown
because all afternoon we chirp
the same three words,
sit and watch,
sit and watch,
everything we want to say
written in the script of birds
whose world is the inside of a wall.
Backyard Apricots 