The lazy yellow cockatoo, at home
down under in antipodal cold, accepts
its outdoor cage with worn aplomb:
its narrow beak curving arrogantly.
Its sharply delineated claws exact
a hold and a half on the sanctuary bars.
Those of us who come to take a look
away with us of its resourcefulness
and lemon-thin skin are not aware,
and care less, that its given place in the air
is less than the usual dosage science requires
for perfect normal family life; of course,
it has its choice of two between two kinds
of mongrel cockatoos and all the breeze
the cage can carry. Some of us, the best
of pets, cluck between the throat and palate,
arriving at a jest the cockatoo,
by natural affinity, may master,
and must, as a token to sex, flurry its crest,
the fan of feathers creating its head;
but when we offer only our goodbyes
and mash of words: guttural scraps of tone,
it pulls itself by the beak to the wire edge
closer and cocks its horntipped weapon, tense
with hospitality. It leans there locked,
until we start to go off; then it drops
back into its deep retreat, saying
something to itself we’d rather not hear.
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