Her keepers are thoughtful: nutritious food, medicine, shelter, instructional arena flights.
She is safe from poachers, electric wires, hunger, territorial squabbles.
Her life should be long and comfortable.
But sometimes in her dreams
she tastes clouds on her wingtips,
fishes from a tree beside a wild river.
In the hollow shafts of her feathers,
ancient memories and instincts slumber.
Her cells remember carving a path against wild currents of wind
with strength of muscle, finesse of feathers,
the sensing and yielding to sensuous currents, like a lover carried into new delights.
