swans

Watching a punter

unmoor her boat

between the darting pecks of a swan

I think of how unevenly

we own this world. 

What of the plainer birds?

What of the lives that are 

denied glamour

or ornament

and do not kill for sport

or dabble in unkindness

but simply

work and rest

and die quietly

free of adulation 

The bird raises its lovely neck

to strike the hand of an innocent. 

As is right. 

This life belongs 

to the beautiful ones.