after a parrot has grown old
sharpening its beak
on my white, brittle body —
the hollowed, worn places
more empty for knowing
what had been there,
a slipstream shape meant
for oceans, density
for navigation and currents,
or were — each peck and draw
of blade-sharp horned mouth
rasps across my firm
resolve, my wholeness
Scrape, a diagnosis. Scrape,
scrape, a divorce, two
divorces.
Scrape.
Scrape.
Scrape.
We are told I am
good for something,
the birds will use me
and grow strong, weather-
ing me away to translucence.
The avian will one day
bang its beak against
the cage where I was, then
someone will
replace me
with a fresh
white slab

who had been in the world
this whole time, isn't anymore.
We, the generations left,
changed our ordinal numbers
today. Second, first. The
bangling fractures of space
framed themselves, old pictures.
No longer third, now second. Old
typewriter return swings its lever
across the universe, advances
the page, we move closer
to the bottom margins.
My brain-blank mind
ejects the paper early,
it flies up into the humid
scarred Florida night sky,
not anything like wings,
not anything like a bird
or a light metaphor.