The Inquisitor’s Parrots

When Columbus returned to Spain,
he gifted two parrots to Queen Isabella.
History cannot tell us how long it took
until the birds had forgotten the language
of the Taíno they mimicked on the island
and if the Spaniards ever registered those
sounds as distinct words or assumed
they were meaningless squawks.

We do not know if the sailors, tired of hearing
the parrots screech for home, stowed them deep
in the brig, where they slept a four month night
or if they bonded with their captors, perched on
their shoulders, and learned the Spanish tongue.

The are no records of their lives in Spain
or what they witnessed in the royal councils.
We do not know if they were bribed with olives
to teach them to shriek auto da fe, auto da fe,
as the condemned was mortified before the crowd
or if the parrots themselves ended their lives
on the braziers, having revealed too much.