Kathy

Sunday returns to the howling country. Spirits
Wander the gravel roads and grumble. She
Counts the eggs, there's enough for breakfast. But two
Are cracked and bad and so she rides her rusty bike
Downtown to Micah's grocery store to buy some
More. Sausages hang gangly in the window like
Umbilical cords. A preacher smiles as he pays
For a can of peas. On his way out the door, he wags
His finger like a wizard. "I'll be sure to see you at Mass."

Before the white flash burns out the light of day,
She thinks of her husband, safe under layers of blankets.
Is this how Sundays begin, when the register clicks
In a truly strange way, and the long line of customers launch
Into bits, as if flicked by the thumb and forefinger of God?

An Insane Parrot's

huge orange eye
stares at the vacant living room,
while she swings back and forth
on her birdie trapeze
inside a cramped metal cage
about the size of a two-year-old child,
and with mindless bobbing
of her green bullet head,
repeats inanely an incantation:
"Happy Day, Happy Day,"
then whistling odd theories as
"Woooooooo" and such,
remembers to feed, so
stopping abruptly,
picks at wet seed
buried in the droppings
on the news-papered bottom,
then startled by the crash
of an ice cube maker
hops on her perch,
in an attempt to fly,
and remembers,
again,
her wings are clipped,
and blinking quite rapidly now
thinks how she will
kill her owner, someday,
with her claws
and chipped beak,
jagged from gnawing on the metal rods,
and hearing the key turn in the door,
she sticks her green bullet head
between the bars,
cuddles her tongue "Caw,"
and can't get through,
tearing out feathers and tasting them
with her hard black tongue,
starts laughing and whooping and cawing like that.
Her orange eye blinks
when the door bangs open:
"Hello, Polly. Have a Happy Day?"