This is a poem about a bird.
I don't think you need to say anything special about birds.
They've been a particular--
I don't say obsession, you know, but I
think I've been following them all my life.
It's called "Fly."
This is a domestic bird in this one.
"I have been cruel to a fat pigeon
because he would not fly.
All he wanted was to live like a friendly old man.
He had let himself become a wreck, filthy and confiding,
wild for his food, beating the cat off the garbage,
ignoring his mate, perpetually snotty at the beak,
smelling, waddling, having to be carried up the ladder at night,
content.
'Fly,' I said, throwing him into the air.
But he would drop and run back, expecting to be fed.
I said it again and again, throwing him up
as he got worse.
He let himself be picked up every time,
until I found him in the dovecote, dead of the needless
efforts.
So that is what I am.
Pondering his eye that could not conceive that I was a creature
to run from, I who have always believed too much in words."