When Birds Divorce

When wrens divorce, the children fly.

Young tits from broken nests decry
The wounded tree, the severed song,
That feathered fate who hopped along
A bobbing branch, while in the park
A lone and separated lark
Complains to the under-birded blue
That there is nothing more to do
Than lean on a pelicanic thorn
And end with song this garish morn.
Or so the ornithologist
Explained. Perhaps a point was missed.
I caught the gossipy detail,
Who’d been distracted by her pale
Brow and her raven hair, a thing
Reminiscent of a wing.
So scientists construct a plot
That shows themselves where they would not.

Outgrabe Days

A fire on the staircase,
The body in the pantry,
A woman in the confessional
Reading Elmer Gantry.

Cutworms on the salad.
Bats below the eaves.
On the doorstep pamphlets
Claiming Jesus grieves.

Children in the parkway,
Placards held on high,
THINGS WILL ALL BE BETTER
When the piggies fly.

When the door is opened
And the stairs ascend.
When the teller flaunts his
Tales at either end.