Robert Peake
The Language of Birds
She is singing French songs
through the bars of the cage
to the lovebird pecking
the cuttlebone, called Peter,
which, in the Bible, means “rock”—
but he is a clockwork of minuscule bones
draped, like a fog, in feathers.
He preens each day before the glass
and plays games he cannot win—
pin the button to the bars,
tap the code on a piece of horn,
the code no-one can decipher,
tear the newspaper with a toothless
beak, wear down the block of salt.
It is only vowels between them now,
pure vowels, and glass-like trills,
sounds reclaimed from the top of the tower
of Babel. He rings his bell, he strums
the bars, uncurls his wings as though
these sounds could somehow give him lift.
Robert Peake read English at UC Berkeley and his poems have appeared in California Quarterly, Cider Press Review, North American Review and Rattle.
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