Janice Hale-Hobby

FLICKER

The incubus,
He knows it well,
This bird, this flicker
trapped inside the dormer window.
He pitches left, then right,
Spellbound by the light.
So preposterous a goal
To rejoin his fellow reds in flight
In the air beyond this glassed-in wall.

An easier way---
Smooth passage through an open door,
Of this I can't convince him.
I try to guide him down,
My broom held shoulder high.
He flees in beak-wide terror
And beats his breast in frantic Morris code---
A flap, a flutter, a bony scratch,
Then splays his feet and hangs,
Acrophobiac upon a metal thong.

Today I heard a mockingbird.
My glasses caught the starling's soar.
I watched two catbirds mate upon the wing
And swept a flicker's body from the floor.