The Park From Above
What scared them? Scores of wild green parrots
fly up shrieking out of the palms,
circle and return, settling their now-invisible wings.
A man has crawled out of the mangroves,
zipping his fly. It’s the spot where the dogs
always stop overlong, then look at me as if to say,
Explain this, please. It’s the guy who sleeps
on a nearby bench and loiters by the boat launch.
The dogs sniff out a roll of toilet paper in a plastic bag,
hidden behind leaves with his backpack and tarp.
The only other witnesses are two white ibises
nervous on the concrete seawall, swiveling
their slender necks, which look too thin
to swallow anything. They fly when we come near,
up to join the ruckus of small green angels
hidden in the palms or spiraling up into the realm
just above the human one, from which they can see
the swings and slide, picnic tables, public restrooms,
drinking fountains, birthday streamers snagged in a tree,
the glass and plastic mysteries delivered by the tide.
