This dream of a bird strange, tangled up. A hybrid: a bunting
and an owl with those sad wet eyes, clacking bill, moony

face, feathered with all the shades of indigo, lichen, gray, lazuli
rainbow of oil as if dipped in, iridescent, painted like susans

and predatory, of song and coyness, perch, a flit, hover, bark a coo
a cry, warble, an undulating sigh. This bird tangled, netted,

is trapped against the screen clinging, panting, can fly
but without joy, can see, but through a cloud, a fog

of its own breathing. Carnivore, you want to put it in your mouth.
Just a slip of, a pocket of, an envelope of skin, feather, bone.

Hypnotize with smoothing the wild, the fussing and gnashing.
Its feet unperch and it sleeps, unblinking other, uncanny

when the unreal becomes real. Pluck the suffocation out.
Lay the bird down in a scattering of dun-colored leaves

which then become bird, like animation but more a dream
brought to life, the frightening of what is known and long familiar.