WALLS OF WIRE-LINKED BIRDS
And the security camera turns
into a tight circular rainbow.
My love walks out of the money machine
towards me with a toddler ostrich
in her tiny hand, her grip
on its wrung neck. Not our kill,
but it'll do for dinner. Later
the kitchen table vibrates
under its spirit leaving
through everyone's ribcages at once.

We look at its sleepy pretty eyelids,
slowly chew the stringy meat
from its thighs. The hills
from across the streets
come rippling over the ice cream shop,
then the small-town airport,
then the glassy escape
of our rugged living room.

We're tied by a thin chicken sinew
to the national currency and the clock.
When the wet string goes dry and snaps,
we fall through the open doorways
of the mental hospital, to be surrounded
by chalk pillars with fluorescent
sausage arms, crudely attached, the heads
lost somewhere near the functionless tops.