The sky is a menagerie
of birds like islands
murmuring in solitude

but no feathers touch
the cornflower expanse;
each is a wisp, a ghost
of baby powder

but less
tangible;
pareidolia
                           (as ever)

my mind making sense
of ambiguous stimuli,
merely cumulous 
dreams in the day.

Here is Roald Dahl’s rhino
with wings, drifting purposefully
amid one-bird flocks
to trample an orphan
from an unlived
life.

There is an owl, and wise
to the coming storm,
rising higher as I watch
his witchcraft expand
with gravity.

And then there’s the phoenix,
curled beak plumage afloat
like an angler’s illumination,
distracting, distracting,
wings pressed tight
in a dive,
                   in a dive…

does he come to divine
or devour?