On the white-hot sidewalk
Limps a bird with a broken wing,
whose flying days are over,
no strength left to sing.

A dove-white bone gleams
in the sun and casts a shadow
through splayed feathers
once preened in a distant meadow.

A lost mate hovers high above,
a buzzard's circle turn,
and off into the free blue sky,
never to return.

And in the shaded depths,
A cat's eye shone with glee,
come to hungrily claim
the bird with the broken wing.