Between homes, on
telephone wires strung out like tight ropes
or the strings of a violin,

birds perch,

acrobatic. They balance
like clothes pegs, or men
on lunch from building

a skyscraper;
they wait in line,
bunched up like morse code

or binary, ones and pairs of ones
(feathered elevens), separated
by gaps and stops,

zero-spaces. Through
the high-wires, speakers
and receivers feed

the electricity, in the breaths,
the pauses,

the crackle. The lines
rule the sky

like an exercise book, trace
the margins onto
paper-plain clouds;

when they cross, they
make kites and cubes, held up

by overlapping pairs
of smoothed trees.

Maybe the birds can feel
the conversations
through their claws,
the vibrations

of distant lovers’ whispers,
the family check-ins,
the check-ups with friends.

Maybe they can feel
these voices, the pulse,
an overload about to happen

along this carless
three lane highway.