hysterical, raucous at the
drowning of the day-
the last desperate gulps of the light.
Running out the back door,
my daughter’s cheek
is brushed by a wing.
Another, fat and splinter-grey,
crouches on the verandah railing
ringing a brass bell on a red rope,
while a third perches on a mouldy straw hat
atop a tilting scarecrow.
Fence-paling ancestors,
they watch from gates and stalking-grounds.
The tips of their polished beaks pince wads of weed
as they tilt and turn their creaky heads,
like jerky dancers in ill-fitting costumes
made from stringybark.
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