A Singing Bird is Caged

Have you ever seen a dwelling place so dense?
Where every man erects an invisible fence
Claiming their territory, claiming their ground
All the while looking 300 feet down

It’s a graveyard for the living
Stacked like cabinet filing
For widows and young professionals
Who die from the weight of expectation

Where wars are waged daily
Domestic and internationally
Where tension, strife and stress
Are kept hidden, swept up and dressed

Measuring 300 feet high and 800 feet wide
Its inhabitants huddled like pie in the sky
The spurt of a voice, not long enough
For neighbourly conversations to start

The occasional peek onto the back of a sofa
To glimpse the hunch of a grandpa
The wrinkle of a leg rested on a floor
The waft of cigarettes on the corridor

At the corner, a singing bird is caged
By a man in a metal door.