Comfort

When ziggurats of furniture crowded
our home and builders’ dust gritted
our skins and there was no comfort
we went to the park to breathe cool air
and watch gulls glide in the dawn sky

and a man in a green and lemon-yellow
football top carried a budgie in a cage
around the park and showed it the flowers
then stopped by the gate to lift the cage
up to his face and whistle to the bird.

When we went to the cafe for breakfast
there he was, cage on the opposite chair
full English on the table.The man said
the budgie’s mate had died. He wanted
to give it comfort, even if people laughed.

Sharon Phillips

If you have any thoughts on this poem,  Sharon Phillips would be pleased to hear them.