Young Johannes keeps his theory
dressed up with petty pink
flourishes and tucked inside her
wicker basket. She's plopped fat

on a spangled, off-center perch
while surrounded by tangles of
circular mirrors, each reflecting
his fragmented eye. “The fluid

mechanics of my camera’s
lens imbues its gaping human
subject with a soul,” this caged bird
sings, just as he’s coached her.

She doesn’t require very much
care -- a few scattered meat-filled
husks and white space for flapping
her clipped-tones -- but reluctantly

Johannes must set Prolly free
to wing it openly upon
the waves of patterned noise
his vacuous glass can’t see.