Macaw and Little Miss

In a cage of wire-ribs

The size of a man's head, the macaw bristles in a staring

Combustion, suffers the stoking devils of his eyes.

In the old lady's parlour, where an aspidistra succumbs

To the musk of faded velvet, he hangs in clear flames,

   Like a torturer's iron instrument preparing

   With dense slow shudderings of greens, yellows, blues,

       Crimsoning into the barbs:

   Or like the smouldering head that hung

In Killdevil's brass kitchen, in irons, who had been

Volcano swearing to vomit the world away in black ash,

And would, one day; or a fugitive aristocrat

From some thunderous mythological hierarchy, caught

   By a little boy with a crust and a bent pin,

   Or snare of horsehair set for a song-thrush,

       And put in a cage to sing.

   The old lady who feeds him seeds

Has a grand-daughter. The girl calls him 'Poor Polly', pokes fun.

'Jolly Mop.' But lies under every full moon,

The spun glass of her body bared and so gleam-still

Her brimming eyes do not tremble or spill

   The dream where the warrior comes, lightning and iron,

   Smashing and burning and rending towards her loin:

       Deep into her pillow her silence pleads.

   All day he stares at his furnace

With eyes red-raw, but when she comes they close.

'Polly. Pretty Poll', she cajoles, and rocks him gently.

She caresses, whispers kisses. The blue lids stay shut.

She strikes the cage in a tantrum and swirls out:

   Instantly beak, wings, talons crash

   The bars in conflagration and frenzy,

       And his shriek shakes the house.