'The team knows you are here' says the voice

on repeat with looped birdsong.

I imagine a waiting room in a tree and

I am a woman-sized chick,

my beak wide with need.

 

Now we inhabit rectangles, curate backdrops.

I veil a bookcase with a bedspread,

ask if it's ok to drink tea,

try to remember she's whole,

soft edged,

not on TV.

 

There's a nail in the wall behind her.

I wonder about the picture that has been taken down

and if her dog (who once, for a minute, I had the chance to

smile towards and speak to in a high fond tone)

curls nearby.

 

A wood-pigeon calls down the megaphone of her chimney

like a child in a tunnel delighted by their decibels.

We laugh from our bellies,

a sweet respite, a firefly

bright across

the binary between.