Kate Noakes

Stormcock

Uncommon. Rare. A pair of song thrushes
make the park home. The male is so tame
many a morning he sits on the curved railing
to greet me, which is ridiculous as he’s a bird.
OK then, he perches unafraid and opens
his beak to sing. Often I pause to greet him,
the mad woman who talks to birds.
Increasingly I care less about my name,

but I do fret as they’ve been absent
the whole summer’s heat.
There’s little water, even the marbled
washing up bowl put out by a bowls player
for the foxes is missing, and the green
is now yellow and turning to dust.

Kate Noakes' most recent collection, Goldhawk Road, was published by Two Rivers Press in 2023. She lives in London and is researching a PhD in contemporary British and American poetry at the University of Reading.