Birdy

doesn’t know I’m up on the top perch or she’s ignoring me. I stay still, watching her, enjoying her movements. I watch her closely the way I watch the birds with my binoculars as a boy.
    Her flying is not exceptional in terms of power or thrust but she’s very light in the air. I feel she loves flying and flies for pleasure. I watch her practice different landings and banking maneuvers. She integrates the movement of her tail, the tilting of her wings and the shifting of her body as if she’s dancing in the air. I’m falling in love with her in the dream the way I fell in love with Birdie, but it’s so much more real.
    In my dream, I sing to her the songs I know and some I didn’t know I knew. When I wake in my bed, I can’t remember the songs I’ve sung. It’s too far inside. As a boy, I decide to put some water in the flight cage so Perta can bathe. I want it to be something special. When my mother isn’t in the kitchen, I take the cut glass butter dish she got when her mother died. We never use it except for company so I’m sure she won’t notice if it’s missing one night. I put the dish in the bottom of the cage that afternoon after I’ve fed all the birds.
    I move two nests of young birds into the other flight cage; they’re eating egg food and starting to crack seed. I’m saving the male flight cage for Perta and myself. I call her Perta because that’s the closest word I can think of for the sound I know her by.
    So, now I’m getting into the dream, and in the dream I’m forcing myself to sleep again so I can dream.
    Perta comes in the dream-dream. The water is on the floor, in the late afternoon sunlight, just as it was when I left it that afternoon. The light is going through the cut glass and making rainbows on the floor and on the back wall. I wait patiently, on my perch in the upper, darker part of the aviary. I know I’m making ithappen, I’m controlling the dream in the dream but I also know I have feelings and knowings beyond myself, that I can’t know what will happen. I’m into the furthest back parts of my mind.
    Perta hops onto the side of the dish and puts her beak into the clear, cold water. She lets it roll back down her throat, tipping her head back and thrusting her breast forward, stretching upward on her thin legs. She does this again. I watch. Then, she pushes her face into the water and splashes back under her wings. She flaps her wings to capture the cold water under the warmest parts of her wings, inside where the down of softest feathers is. She does this two or three times before she lightly springs into the water, arches her back, tilts her head and starts throwing the clean water onto the feathers between her wings on her back.
    I can see all this with unnatural clarity. It’s as if I’m beside her. I see each drop remain intact and roll off the soft feathers. I can slow down the rapid movements of her bath and see them happen slowly, unfolding with infinite grace.
    Then, I start to sing. I’m singing, and I’ve made no conscious decision to do this. Perta has flown onto a perch and is preening herself. She doesn’t seem to hear me. I’m excited. I feel hot blood rushing through me. All my muscles are contracted and my wings are lifted in tension. I’ve pulled myself tall on my legs and I’m rocking back and forth with my song; dancing to my own rhythm, aiming all of me toward Perta. I feel a sense of haste, of need, of desire for completion. Perta continues her preening.
    I fly down next to her. I land beside her on the perch and increase the strength and desire of my song. Perta pays no attention. She doesn’t turn her head or move. I edge toward her. She doesn’t move away. I’m prepared to have her fly from me; I want to chase her, to sing to her in flight. I come closer. She reaches back with her beak and pulls out, straightens the feathers on her back. There’s only one thing to do; I feel it inside myself. I fly over Perta and lower myself onto her. I’m turgid with passion.
    There’s nothing! I come down on the place where Perta was and there’s nothing at all. I’m alone! I find myself falling, not from the perch but from the dreams. I fall out of my dream-dream into mydream; know myself for a second, alone, asleep on the top perch, then I fall again out of the dream and into my bed in my room.
     
    I wake up. It’s the first time I’ve had a wet dream. I’ve kept hearing about wet dreams but never had one. I go into the