By Sarah B. Sullivan
how easily the flutter of bones
of wings that once knew weightless
can be muted in that moment
when hunger – bursting forth
from earth’s belly & trigger finger
in the form of boom & recoil –
whispers hallelujah. why
doesn’t blood rain from above
each time a flight dies midair?
do the white feathers bloom
and spread into crimson flower?
I should know what I hold –
blackened & abandoned
the ashy sum of all flights
memories of someone else’s wisdom
someone else’s bird’s eye view.
the whole earth is a kind of love
furled within the silence within
a stream where fish fly hard
& breathless; where lovers
mouth words, where letters bubble
into a current that carries anything
we wash from our hands.
all my life I have been rinsing
ash from my palms, scrubbing
dirt from my knees & grease
from my pores, tossing bones
& shells. how easily the crunch
my hips would soften if I dove.
I would know what I don’t hold—
wet & a taste of steel; know
what presses against skin—no gaps
between molecules, no time
between moment & bone, memories
& crimson, boom & recoil.
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