Birdy

that on a bird before.’
    I nod my head. He hands her to me. I feel her heart beating against my hand. Mr Lincoln goes to get a small carrying box for me but I say I’ll carry her in my hand. I have a terrible advantage.
    I’d come over through the park instead of on my bike. I try to thank Mr Lincoln but I really only want to get away, take Perta back with me.
     
    I put her in the flight cage and watch her all the rest of the day through my binoculars. It’s exactly like the dream-dream. This is the first time something that started in the dream is happening afterward in my boy life.
    When I look into the breeding cages and clean the floors I feel part of the other birds. I’m not alone even when I’m only a boy; I have my female, too. She’s with me in my boy life and in the dream-dream, too. I’m hoping she’ll be in the real dream tonight. I’m even more excited about it than flying.
    That night in the dream I don’t sleep. I’m up on the highest perch and I see her on the bottom of the cage eating seed just as she was the first time in the dream-dream. I know enough to know I’m dreaming and to know why she’s there, but those ideas are only like dreams themselves. She’s most real here in my dream.
    I watch her for a while. The butter dish is filled with water, and she takes a bath just as she did in the dream-dream. I’d forgotten to put the dish in the cage before I went to sleep; this is how the dream can have its own life. The dream me knows what I want more than I do myself.
    I watch her bathe as I did before. Till now, she still hasn’t seen me in the top of the cage. I sing to her. I sing:
    How is it I know you, strange one?
    In what untrammeled sky did we fly?
    Perhaps I was the air and you
    the bird. Did you fly through me?
    Why are we not mated? Give me
    a sign; will you be mine?
    Do you see me, feel my desire?
    Or are you already tired of my song?
    When I’m finished, I fly down to her. She sees me. She hears me. The wall between us is gone.
    ‘Hello. I didn’t know there was another bird in this cage. I thought I was alone. Have you been here long?’
    I don’t want to lie to her but I also want her to think of me only as a bird. I answer.
    ‘Yes, I’ve been here all the time.’
    ‘I like your song. You sing very well. Do you have a female?’
    ‘No. I am alone.’
    ‘Were you serious in your song? Did you sing what you mean? Or were you only singing?’
    ‘I was serious. I sang what I mean.’
    ‘I have no male now. I have had no babies. I have had many eggs but no babies. I would like to be your female, but you should know this.’
    ‘Yes. I would like that.’
    ‘Do you understand?’
    I cannot answer her. I’ve never talked to anyone who spoke and thought so directly. Her ideas, her ways, are clear and straight as clean water. There is a natural flow between us that I’ve never known. I feel myself going out into her and she coming into me. I start to sing:
    I bring unweathered seeds of joy,
    an endless coming together. Let
    us fly. Our time grows from
    yesterday’s tomorrows; we glide
    gently to our private past.
    Let us fly.
    ‘That was lovely, even stronger than the first song. You have thoughts in your songs I’ve not heard before. It is as if you are more than a bird, have seen beyond the cage.’
    ‘Thank you. But if you are a bird, there is nothing more or beyond. Let us fly together.’
    We fly over all the cage that night. I show her things Alfonso taught me and she shows me how to do her quick turns and slow graceful hovering landings. She has a fine way of using the air as a hold and not sliding on it. It’s like treading water. She teaches me how to do it without thrashing or fighting the air.
     
    The next night when I dream, it is early afternoon. It is earlier in the day than it’s ever been before in the dream. The bath water is there and it’s fresh. I did remember to put it in this time.
    Perta is there. She is waiting and welcomes me by flying up before I fly down to her. She looks me in the eyes, straight on, very unbirdlike. As I remember this, she shifts her head and looks at me, bird-style. We shift our heads back and forth, looking into each other; my left to her left, right to right, my left to her right, her left to my right. I don’t remember birds doing this. Then, she flies to the perch below.
    ‘Come, Birdy, let us bathe together.’
    I didn’t tell her my name.
    I follow her down, wondering how she knows my name; it makes