Is it my job to flee, or yours to chase;
mine to constrict,
or yours to expand—like water
The first highway rivers:
boats in summer;
sleighs in winter
Water solidifies by growing apart
wings catch sky
between hooklets of feathers
Overlapping scales, articulated joints
Dipladenia opens
a carmine-red star
Lipstick, that animal color
my mother warns not to butcher the bird
or I will lose taste for flesh
(little deaths)
I cannot resist
origins, mechanisms, bound wings
Look how close we are
all the atoms
between us
A wave crests: down is both ways
and each feather
has two vanes
He bands my wrists; I buck up
water resisting
its unthawing—
Ancestors’ protests—muffled
by years, dirt
ochre’d hand
I would like to interview
the grasp
this dark corner
Or bleach myself in the window, anything
to finally evict
this spirit from the body.