I don’t know what they do
this time of night.
I just hear them squawking.
And they sound a little bent out of shape.

They chatter with one another,
voices strained but constant —
New parents whisper loud
through the nursery wall

trying to get their baby down,
exhausted, having lost all sense
of night and day,
though their tired chatter goes on.

I imagine if they stop
they will tip off the tree branch —
not that I have true reason
to suppose they will.

It is just my own exhaustion
that I hear in their voices —
and how it is so easy to tip and fall
long into the night.