Bird Man Dreaming Flight Abigail Elizabeth Ottley

Bird Man Dreaming Flight

Flitting through twilight like brilliant ghosts they twittered from their early evening perches. The chicken wire sides of your ramshackle aviary extended high and wide high as the sky.

Joey was your favourite. He would sit on your wrist while you hooked a calloused finger to caress him. Pretty, pretty Joey. You pursed your bristling, bushy lips bestowing a peck of a kiss.

The aviary went first, then our house was other-peopled. Childhood is made precious by such memories: the hush before tea-time, you in your shirt-sleeves, breathing in the roosting, feathered silence.

From our high back steps you study the sky, sigh, suck softly on your pipe.

Abigail Elizabeth Ottley

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