Kozhikode Eagles

The friendly attendants lead me to my cage.

I have air, water & newspaper lining the base.

Windows struggle with the light.

Call from my comfortable containment to the eagles

above a car storage lot next door — all new with

their wipers pulled out from the windscreens

like the antennae of snoozing cockroaches.

There’s a hint of ant nest

out on Mavoor Rd

A bit of beetle in the stalls selling phone accessories.

Those eagles hardly ever seem to land…

this weave of air they inhabit

while commerce crawls & crunches below.

Pomegranates tumble towards earth

spice films everything.

The city is the birds’ business too

though I can’t imagine what they eat

or where their nesting hides.

Earthbound in our mix of compassion & abuse

busy with necessities & dreams,

the scuttle lacks any sense of grace.

How did people like us

build or banish so much

with those flightless hands?