She has a quiver of calls—
the ee-chup, the kak, the chitter—
but today, like most days,
it is the wail she hurls
from her water tower perch.
A peevish carping,
sharp as a hard pinch, it means
I want something to change.

I’m with you, sister.
I too want something to change,
want so many things
to change. I want to go back
to the way it was. Or to rush ahead
to better times. I want a cookie,
a laugh, a garden abuzz with bees.
Give me something, anything
other than this.

Talons clamped around the steel railing,
we’ll shriek our chagrin,
whip our knife-edged gripes
over the treetops:
want-want-want-want