The Pecking Order

The plastic cylinder sways in the wind,

crusted with white droppings and gray rain.

It’s a tiny theater for the hungry and the pinned,

where the polite usually lose out to the stain

of a blue jay diving like a blunt, azure knife.

He shoves the sparrows into the mud below

just to spill more seed than he’ll need for a life,

a frantic waste that I’ve come to know

by watching the people I work with at noon.

We all hover around the same cheap plastic perches,

waiting for someone to clear out of the room

while the rest of us go on with our searches.