The Bird

My heart is bruised tonight
I am like a little bird who
doesn't realise its cage, who
flutters and flutters and
hurts its wings against the cold
metal, stops, breath coming
in gasps, look down, see
tiny blood-drops staining the
base of the cage, heartblood
squeezed from the fragile
body with its small bone-
cage brittle, delicate, barely
able to hold in the beating
heart, the  bruising of wing, the
soft feathering.  My  heart is
bruised tonight.  Little bird with
no song.  Little lonely bird with
no companion.

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