Sutherland birds
All Sutherland birds are flightless, the local
council recommends
tiny holes in fences for the poor
creatures to hop
through, and we are strangers lost
and roaming in a lonely place.
Riders within us direct our dreams,
we who imagine ourselves
untouched by the local weather,
and yet a storm is brewing
by the picture rail in the dining room
where the larks are pecking at the carpet,
and Docinha’s head is hidden inside
a fluffy philosophical cloud.