The Cage

When the goldfinch like rising dough
suddenly moves, as a heart throbs,
anger peppers its clever cloak
and its nightcap blackens with rage.

The cage is a hundred bars of lies,
the perch and little plank are slanderous.
Everything in the world is inside out,
and there is the Salamanca forest
for disobedient, clever birds.

Copyright © 2004 Richard & Elizabeth McKane All rights reserved
from The Moscow & Voronezh Notebooks
Bloodaxe Books / Dufour Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission