Love Birds

I

Birds always sing in the morning
But one Saturday
It was the children flocking
That woke me.
My wife came
To tell me what they had found.
It was small and orange
And out of place
Beside the parked car.
A half grown pumpkin of feathers.
An owl in the street
During the day
Surrounded by a closing circle of children
Slowly building up the courage
To get closer
To poke at it with sticks.
It looked at me
With half closed, drowsy eyes
And swiveled its head a few ticks
“Is it alright?” the children asked.
An owl in the street
During the day.

My cat watched
From the grass behind me
Low to the ground
As I gently scooped up the bird
And it fit in the palm of my hands
Like my wife’s cheek.
The owl didn’t move or hoot and blink
And I placed it in a small box.
My cat would have killed it
If not for all the children
And he hated me then for taking it away.
He probably loved that owl
The only way a cat can love
By wanting it dead.


I drove it to a bird sanctuary
Thirty miles down Route 4
Where they rescue injured birds
Driving slow and avoiding the bumps.
The owl just stood in the box
Facing forward as I drove
Its eyes, yellow slits
There was no sadness there or fear
As if on a street or in a box
Were places owls often go.
When I got there I carried the box
Into the infirmary
To give to a nurse
Who cradled the owl in her hands
The way she held her child’s cheek,
And I spent the rest of the morning at the sanctuary
Admiring all the birds of prey
Safe and secure in their cages.

II

My cat used to be a kitten
And was very soft and cute.
He would play and purr and run
And sleep curled up in my hand.
I don’t know what happened
To make that kitten into a cat.
It wasn’t something I taught him
Or survival.
One day he was just a cat.
There was nothing I could do.
He was a gangster
Fat, delinquent and rotten.
Owls kill mice to eat them and survive.
Cats kill mice because they desire to.
They love them too much to let them live.
My cat does not make love
To his girlfriends under the bushes.
They fuck.
They claw and bite and scream and cry
And afterwards he saunters home
Bloody, worn and delighted
To lick himself and sleep,
To dream of killing mice and birds
And try at it again with his mistresses
When his wounds all heal.

III

The dinner at my brother’s house was delightful,
Colorful and hot
And afterwards
My brother had removed his belt
Because he was full
Of anger.
He had slipped
On the broken glass and red wine
While dodging the flying forks and plates
With exemplary agility
As his wife cursed his name.
My own had fled into the kitchen
And I admired the flowers on the tablecloth.

I had seen it all before
I told my wife
In the car as we drove home.
Like when his wife had left him on the side of Route 4
Thumbing for rides from logging trucks
Because he had looked too long at a girl in a passing car.
Or when she had forgotten to press his suit
For a christening party.
Or when his bachelor party was mentioned
As having occurred.
Later on
They would kiss their fat lips
And cradle bruises in their hands.
They loved each other so much
It made them hate one another.
She didn’t understand it
As I held her cheek in my hand
I didn’t either.
“What about the owl?” she asked.

IV

Funny thing about the birds
In the raptor sanctuary,
They always huddled together
Wing to wing
On the wooden perches
As the people walked by their cages
Two by two.
The owls, the hawks the eagles.
What got to me most
Where the vultures.
Fat, bald and black
Hunched necks and alert eyes.
They sat together
But even more,
Wild vultures had joined them
Resting on the cage tops
Quiet and patient and content just to be together.
We think of vultures as repulsive
But they love each other
And depend on each other
Every year
They have two babies
They nurture and raise
An attendant tells me
As he throws in a dead fish.
The vultures flock to it
And eat by nipping at it
But never once harm another.

“What about the owl?”
He tells me she was pregnant
She couldn’t lay the eggs
She died.

V

Later that night
I drag the garbage to the curb
Where the owl had stood
And light a smoke.
My wife is sleeping
My cat is killing.
My brother and his wife are tending
To their wounds.
From in the tree above me
Drifted a low and long call.
It was desolate
Weak and wavering.
Somewhere high above
In the shadowy boughs
Of a winter humbled tree
A forsaken owl sits alone.
It knows only that its mate is gone
And continues its call.
I flick my cigarette.
At that moment
All that I want
Is to hold my wife’s face in my hands.