They sing.
At the stupid o’clock
when
even Sun
hasn’t
got up yet
but only opened its eyes,
stretched out and yawned
these irksome creatures already
tweet
chirp
peep
sing
their dumb happy songs
and don’t
let me sleep.
They sing.
Clang, tinkle, ring.
When I work.
When I walk.
When I speak
on the phone.
I growl
“What? Wait, I can’t hear you.
No, there’s no construction work. Parrots!
Parrots, that’s right,
Let me just
close my window, you mind?”
They are everywhere
in my hot little lively town
across the Mediterranean Sea
from
the better-refined world.
Oh my God,
Can you.
Just.
Please.
Shut up?
For a second, huh?
Their tweets sound like
happy laughs:
“No, we can’t!”
And then
I can not hear them.
Instead
I hear
a deafening sound of fear.
The streets
of my hot lively town
are swiped clean
by the all-encompassing sound
of the alarm.
The air is thick,
palpable,
pregnant
with the menace
of the looming threat.
It’s the siren:
missile attack.
No human,
no cat,
no dog,
no rat
in the street.
And then
it hits me:
where the heck
are the parrots?
Do you know
where the parrots go
when a hot little lively town
is under
the missile attack?
