Originally published in Concho River Review, Fall 2016, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize

A Subtraction of Cockatoos

First there were three of them,

pillars of white feathers, the height

and elegance of a Roman bust,

dusk-legged, beaked black and on the backs

of their heads lurked the oil spills

of their nature, long frills

one orange, one yellow, one red,

raised like a lady’s skirt

as they weaved sideways testing density

of muscle and knot in the shoulder

of my grandfather, their owner

his back turned while they peered

with perfect nazars of blue eyes, my neck.

The oranged one died first, clipped wings

faltering in a leap over a creek

that left its body in water among leeches.

The yellowed fell ill and wasted off

to bone, gnawed rough, its feathers

falling together to the front of its perch.

And the third, alone among us, found itself mad

screamed without pause, forgot its words

flung sharp edges of anatomy like cockle-shells

undid its crest all day by splitting the

white feathers open behind itself

and would not let us forget that red, red, red