Crackers

A pet bird is born to never fly.
Instead he spends his first days caged,
A sticker labelling his worth.
Blaring children press their hands to the store cage.
Look, a birdie! Do you want a cracker?

A pet bird perches in a hung barred cage
Mumbling the same dead-eyed phrases.
He makes a squealing child clap his chubby hands
When he raspily squawks, “Polly wants a cracker.”

But he doesn’t want a cracker.

He often cries in desperation and hopes it is heard on a free breeze.
Instead it bounces in a cold echo,
A taunting menace, reminding him of the walls closing in.

A pet bird’s buried body becomes lifeless.
But can a bird be lifeless
If he didn’t truly have a life to begin with?

A pet bird will never spiral around a cloud-filled sky,
He will never build a cozy nest upon the tallest branch
Or watch his young break through their egg
Or forage for the ripened berries of autumn.

Instead, a pet bird’s life is like a cracker,
Crumbling into dust, bland and dull.

And he doesn’t want a cracker.