Not an eagle or hawk, though,
more likely a chicken.
I’m afraid you’ll stay close to the earth
pecking, hopping, scratching, staring
at the dirt. The dirt will be your horizon.
You’ll have a grape sized brain and the patterns
of your penned world—your own tracks and droppings—
will absorb you all your pre-processing days.
But this is not what I should tell you. I should inspire,
uplift, be part of the solution.
but I am as insoluble as mercury-
a liquid ball rolled, shattered, reformed.
I would make you a duck—a city lake duck–
summering among manicured weeds
and graceful on glossy water,
but you would form gangs that barricade
the walking path, bobbing and hissing
until I threw bread. I have no bread to throw–
nothing in my pockets but paper.
Only goats eat paper, and goats have no wings,
vestigial or otherwise.