Once upon a land they held their crowned heads high and danced majestically with green-blue oilslick colored feathers spread out wide. Their beauty was a sight to see, they drew the crowds yet strutted free among the groves and village streets to screech their song.
They had no need of mirrors for they mirrored each other’s swell, although perhaps a bigger, taller display of eyelashed eyes was noted here or there. They fought and preened among themselves, too loudly once to foreign ears who snagged them, bagged them, shipped them over seas as royal turquoise as themselves.
And now they stand with tails closed shut as people watch and prod them to display with bits of bread or plastic spoons they shout and toss their way. Their colors fade, their feathers dust, but ah, one spies a special prize and proudly flaunts around what he has found. And once again he struts the pen, oblivious to the laughter at the streaming toilet paper he drags behind him on the ground.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology