The cockatoos came home today
all showy insistence
rowdy language hanging from every limb
ravenous camping teens
stripped the pear tree
to a shrivel of skins
a dishevel of band aids
the cupey-eyed passion fruit happily just flower
in Bilson Street shoppers watched
the low tumultuous sky
turn this way and that
across the garrulous horizon
a nonchalant blink of avian sight
while feathers foam the crest
in speech of chalky outlines
transparent, these forensics of occupation
Published in Quadrant January-February 2021 Volume LXV, Number 1-2, No 573
James Walton Poetry 