It’s your bird
A sailor somewhere taught the bird to curse.
Now there is nothing to be done,
profanity and earthiness
an integral stain on its vocabulary.
It can’t be unlearned
though it knows not a single definition.
No changing of feathers now;
no silencing cover up
or wringing it’s pretty green neck.
It’s your bird. You
can’t disown it.
But unhitch its tether; stop feeding it.
The best you can, live with it
until the day it undertakes
through an open window
its flight long forgotten and among the heights
renounces its acquired, artificial ability to speak.
O child of God, neither parrot nor songbird
bears even the slightest resemblance to truth.
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