Loved Birds
By Noelle Leslie de la Cruz

Her new birds are lovely
in their jade-blue plumage,
with small beaks and dainty tongues
darting out for a French-kiss.

They flap their wings
and land unerringly
on the same perch in the cage.

Outside the garden, the din
of cars and buses. Uncollected garbage
ripens at the foot of the stone pillars
holding up the tracks

as the train speeds serenely
across the city, above the buildings
with the clothes hanging
out of windows like white flags
of surrender. In the horizon

the black dot of an airplane
grows infinitely smaller
and the birds that nobody owns
streak across the sky,
moving targets for sling stones.

But some birds are loved.
Her pets, for example
in their white steel cage,
their wild little eyes homing in
on the birdseed that fills
their feeding trough.

Wingspan untested
and safe behind bars.