A jay digs at the hanging feeder,
holds a seed in his beak
like a jeweler tweezing an emerald.

After a storm: an odd, moldy light
falls from the bird

like filtered sorrow,
and water clings to bamboo shoots,
afraid to drop down.

Fifty birds would fit, but right
now my body expands and the walls move out
and I unravel with them.

The sun filters through the slatted roof,
makes an even crest down my forehead.
The hiss in the eucalyptus now.
(The hiss when I say eucalyptus)

I feel a blackbird in my chest, a feather
caught in my throat. This is
what should be called finding yourself,

as in you will not find yourself
in the caged garden. When I speak
words slide right off the bamboo.

What? someone would ask, passing
the cage while I was saying I am
so lonely in this aviary, so quiet...

Magpies swoop by
as if tracing radio waves.
A meadowlark doesn't sing.

She stations herself in a baby elm tree
as if she owns the baby elm tree.
She's been standing there five minutes,

not a single word, as if
this tree is silenced by the will
of the bird, fully feathered

in black-crested yellow.
Or maybe the meadowlark is trying
to hear the tree, reaching down

to find a distant, sturdy voice
carving sound
out of the wooden core.