Treyf

feygele is yiddish for the way i walk into a room.

feygele, the anglicized spelling of angel

fallen into the dark earthen pits of fashion.

feygele from the german vögelein meaning “little bird.”

little bird, where do you flame from?

where do you bird from little german flame?

little singlet split for entry. little finger slipped

into the mouth staring hard across the bare wet bar.

little bear in his arrogant leather harness, his broad

american faith. carry me with you across the fleshless

threshold how an old woman carries her language

across an ocean so vast, so many fathoms deep

one might imagine all life springing from the wet

slit of its shoreline. sure i’ve memorized every word

for faggot & nearly all their origins are plural & bound

together with twine. little string corset wrapped

around my brothers’ thighs. little horses wild

at the bit to be ridden. little films where the animals

are let out but only at night. sure i’ve eaten directly

from the hand of a man who taught me the simplest

words, gestures of thirst & begging. sure i was hatched

into a world that expected me to fly straight into power-

lines. but see how hideous hearse-shined my feathers,

see my wings spread like a dead book of legs,

see my brutal beak a seed-thief in the club light.

my first name was flame & i drew moths & mouths alike.

feygele as in son of the first preacher with gills. as in

the flood that began & refused to quench. as in when

i was a child i killed a bird, sparrow i think, with my bare

hands so it wouldn’t go on suffering — it was sick.

give me your hands, hold my skull between them

how you’d hold a bag writhing with birds, a pillowcase

thick with lights, two grown boys in gowns howling,

a cold mud village consumed by flames, a cage door

opening, a blade, a blade, ablaze.