Stucco Thicket
Small birds are somehow always in the mall.
The stately, doméd food-court is their hall and tiny sky.
Tad, the tall, bald man is flustered by their dives,
Perturbed, trying to wind down with fries and coke.
"Incoming!" his mind cries. They’ve flown by before he jolts,
Curses, blushes, feels shame for such a chicken flinch.
Just thrushes, sparrows. A kind of finch? Who knows,
Who cares what make or model of bird lives there
In the eves above the columned gates of Sears.
Birds of the food-court.
Birds of the mall.
Tiny, spiraling tears of grey and brown.
Tad wishes for a mop or broom
To swat them down.