A Summer Feast

A blackbird is spiking and drinking
the apricots, tipping down and in
as if on the edge of a birdbath.
The white cat has plumped itself
deep inside the tree's tangle to wait:
stealthily conspicuous, besieged by ripeness.
Taut muscles alter with each peck,
quicksilver glance: unreachable from
three branches away, unless cats had wings.
Napoleon in Switzerland, it lies
with the intent abandon of the voyeur —
agonisingly suggestible.
At the end of a slender bough, the blackbird
fans its tail, well-fed, bounces and flutters
in a fresh shower of sunlight.