Between the stuffed chair
and couch our nine-year-old
granddaughter bumps along a cart.
It contains the cage
that holds her budgie, Buddy—
his bobbing, salubrious blue
and white head, pretty prattle,
white-edged wings
with an appetite for flight.

Our hands will flutter fingers
that mime its wing's small primeval bones,
as the cart twists through a tight space
to her bedroom while we say goodnight;
Leah insists her bird stay close,
as if, covered by cloth,
it yet can sentinel any shadow.

But he'll pass into her room
in daylight too, and we'll cry,
"Buddy, are you going to fly?
Does Buddy get to fly?"—

Sometimes I'll turn my hand
to see its flapping as Buddy sees it,
as if we're part of that flock he watches
from this house
wrapped in windows,
where, in Leah's room, he must dream
of following the trees'
freedom trail up.

We hope, for Buddy's sake,
that flitting above the sill he'll feel
one-uppance—sensing
that the birds of our hands
are tethered to our arms,
that with his wings for a while
riding high, that it's us
who are ruffled, fussing
because we can't come too.