Audubon in Edinburgh, 1826

They invite me to their salons to display my art.
But I'd be happier outside their frou frou boxes
watching sparrows pick at dung in the street.

I carefully arranged that band-tailed pigeon
on a branch of dogwood. She looks
alive but I painted her dead.
I shot her with my own gun.

As they eye the viviparous and me,
the kept Kentucky woodsman, I dream
that I sail the air above, feathered.

Christopher T. George