Magpie

 

What about this scruffy bird

with its broken leg?

 

Don’t blather any more

on Churchill or Freud.

History

is acted out by fancies that bounce from flesh

to flesh like water trickling into cracks.

 

What about this magpie

that’s fated to pass by dumpsters

out the back of theatres

acting the history out?

 

What about the broken bird

shoved out here?

 

It’s not its fault…

It’s not its fault…

 

Submitted to fate, it eyes me casually.

It doesn’t move despite my approach.

It’s tired.

It’s given up.

It knows.

 

You have my word,

broken bird,

that when I get the ghastly tap myself,

I won’t be thinking of Freud or

Churchill

or Genghis Khan

if I’m thinking at all by then.

If anything,

I’ll reminisce on you

and how you tried your best before my eyes

with the bits you were thrown

by fate.