Home Entertainment

Paula Bonnell

As the rays of the winter sun
cross the neighbors’ rooftree
to splay on the bedroom blinds,
from them are cut the silhouettes
of birds, animato con moto,
and their kneebends, wing-
spreads, and colloquies flitter
among the bars of the six lights
as bird television.

In the middle bedroom
where the air-conditioner
still has not been removed
from the sill, the lengthening
days warm the eggs in the
nest on its shelf and they hatch
to perform the apoggiaturas
and twittering tremolos
of bird radio.

Upstairs before the 
sliding glass door to the deck
the cat crouches, wary, immobile,
and intent on the railing and boards
soon to boast strutting and
fretting and fine feathers.
His impatient patience premeditates
the parts he will play
in bird theater.

PEN New England Discovery Writer and 2020 Pushcart nominee Paula Bonnell has published poems in APR, Rattle, Southern Poetry Review, and dozens more in the U.S., the U.K., India, and Australia.  Her four collections are Message, Ciardi Prize winner Airs & Voices, and two chapbooks, Before the Alphabet and tales retold.