Scarlet wattle underscores unblinking amber eyes.
I see this avian bravado, this sudden game of chicken
framed in the windscreen. A fully plumaged deathwish,

tyres braking inches from his herringbone tail. He cocks
a mottled helmet, flashes his lurid scarf of splashed green,
cloaked from beak to claw in pompous, mating sheen.

He will cross the road regardless, so I stop. What scent
has prompted such a pheromone drunk decision? Persuaded
him to undertake this kamikaze mission? For my trouble,

I get a baleful fluff of feathered chest, then on he goes,
quite reckless. I guess that nature made him
either birdbrained or plain feckless.

Jane Burn is a North East based writer and artist originally from South Yorkshire. Her poems have been featured in magazines The Rialto, Butcher’s Dog, Iota, Under The Radar, And Other Poems, The Black Light Engine Room and many more, as well as anthologies. She also established the poetry site The Fat Damsel.