Foul

The ducks kick each other with their webs,
fighting over bread that slowly kills them.
Fake psychics and Mormon missionaries
hand out pamphlets, with opposite
opinions about what people should do
with their hands.
Bills close on green and white necks
at each clash of talon and feather.
There is only one way out of the neighborhood
and the road looks like it stretches past forever.
Curtains move in the windows
at the slightest sound of sirens or the rain.
Quacks like guttural growls of desperation,
both far too beaten and too cut down
to call it even.
The sound of a distant gunshot
cuts through the morning air,
and all the birds take off at once
to seek forgiveness, in the South,
where it is warmer.