The Parrot

Post Reply New Topic

The Parrot


You greet me with such aplomb,
I almost think you human.
It is not only “Hello,” not only
“How are you,” nor even “Pretty!” —
no, it is
some glimmer of intelligence
caught in the eyes, and glancing out at me,
taunting this pale, unfeathered creature
who stands treating with you, not quite able
to discover just how far
your scintillant cleverness may extend
and how, precisely, one should measure it
against her own.

Your winks are knowing.
And your mouth,
caught in the upturn of a smile, as if
you are perpetually jovial,
now issues forth
a strand of enthusiastic obscenities,
followed by shouting. Do you know
precisely what attention you may glean
from such displays of bawdiness? I think
you do; I laugh
at this second torrent
of unexpected humanness,
of perfectly feigned pique,
and now you sing.

You sing like a preverbal diva
of the opera, not in words
but in a torrent
of emotions
bound up in the wavering
of trills and enviable warbles,
now extending vowels, now stringing
consonants along like pearls
in the strand of your gloriously
nonsensical aria.

Oh this, this is a tongue I speak;
I do not want for feeling, and I do not need
utterances that form themselves
into coherence. I reply
with higher notes than yours,
soon falling in a long cascade
of portamentos, executed with such grace
that you believe me
almost psitticine.