Feral

He has a stump where a toe should be.

He landed on the stone ledge, inches from my wrist,

with a neck like a oil slick, green and purple,

a beautiful thing that shouldn't exist

in a place this gray. I coughed into my sleeve,

and he just blinked a hard, orange eye.

He didn't fly off. He didn't even flinch.

He’s used to the soot and the heavy, low sky.

I watched them for an hour, bobbing for crusts.

I can’t go back inside to the quiet and the dust.

I’d rather stay out here with the birds and the grime,

just wasting a little more of my own borrowed time.