Masturbating on my bed
In summer storm swelter
and there’s a flapping outside the window
In the back yard.Shorts up and
face-wipe i go outside and it’s
a jackdaw,can’t fly properly,
broken blunders into walls flies
at my face with javelin beak
I duck and he’s in through my
bedroom window.Shite.
Some fiend’s banner,calling to battle.
An angel’s sloughed virtue,squawking to war.
Back inside he sees me and flaps,
soars across the room and smack
into the bedroom window,dazedly
Shakes his head on the sill.
Gently,I guide him out.
He cartwheels into the corner of the yard
and squats there.I break some bread
for him to eat and he ignores it.
Sky suddenly boundaried,
no blue,no cloud,no air.
Yet even here between brick and timber
black wings butcher space like blades
Later i go out to see him
and take my washing off the line.
He’s cowering in the corner,a
black and breaking thing,beak
gasping,pink tongue twitching,
blue-rimmed eyes obsidian
swivel.Ten minutes later and
he’s supine ,feet up,curled
claws clasping for the grey
and negligent sky.I put
him in a carrier-bag
and then into the bin
A nest somewhere,straw and spittle,
eggs among stolen.
silver things.A gap now
in the sky.Maybe a mate,
cresting the tree,lookout and
ruffled like an archaic
rare black cap
.
Niall Griffiths
.