Back in the 90s, a crate of parrots
was shipped to New York from South America.
As in every horror movie, they escaped,
their cries drowning out even rush hour traffic.
They built nests big as the Buicks parked below,
beside telephone pole transformers,
to warm their chicks, and were fruitful
and multiplied: a friend confiding
he couldn’t walk in his park for parrots
dive bombing, their green plumage mirroring
their strafing olive guano, their screeching
the pandemonium of Paradise Lost,
Brooklyn no longer a fairly civilized
borough of New York City,
but a beleaguered outpost on the Orinoco.
