I always look hungry. I always look the same.
To tell me apart from my brothers you might have to trace
the sunset-orange spot on my beak as I stay in one place,
or tag my heel or say my given name.
In a position of confident wariness
easy to take, or mistake, for weariness,
my head flicks back and forth like a swivel chair
in need of lubrication or minor repair.
I would be graceful, somewhere.
I want to persuade myself that I don’t care.
I decline to compete with your kites, which can go far higher,
but cannot change direction on their own.
Nor can they stay—I have seen them flee, or expire—
if their companions leave them alone.
The froth of the whitening surf can match the tint of my oversize breast,
my overbalanced, exploratory tail.
Though I can appear
as shaky and awkward as the reversed
banner unfolding behind a propeller plane,
my confidence is real.
Beyond that I can’t say just how I feel.
To catch me at rest,
you must wait all the hours of my working day and then add one.
No human being has seen my nest.
That doesn’t mean I never have, or had, one.