Notes for the Newly Winged

Here, at the cliff of nothing.

Xebecs sinking at the dock & the people boarded anyway.

Teenagers in stolen sweaters, smoking their first cigarettes

under the tracks.

Winter: the pale shape of my mother, coughing & still

quiet.

Morning, like cold rain pooled in the small of his back.

Young, chugging milk, under the canopy of midnight.

In Charleston, a family of  bats lived in the attic & the girl

would pray

Because Joan of Arc was singing on the pyre.

Because the fireflies & their secret language are reason

enough.

Zinnias in the distance. Their roots already here.

Each time a crow cuts her tongue.

Neutral: shirtless, clanging teeth while the Camry rolls downhill.

Not driving, but

dreaming of heat past dark.

Venus on a good day.

Here, where the dogs play violin.

Zipping the sky in its body bag.

I’d slip you, chalkdust between my fingers, & blow the sun’s

core out.

Time is over, & we won.

You tell me I’m tripping, but I know I’m taking a shortcut.

Prayers answered, wherever the rain falls.

As if  heard by a newly winged creature, still learning

compassion’s feel in its mouth.

As if the shadows laughed in colors, unintelligible to the human

eye.

Xenon, but more gorgeous.

Underground, where we’ll learn to breathe

valium like air.

Flesh in a porcelain finish—because breaking apart was

only the first step.

Death: a thrift store mirror, cracked in all the bright places.

Roadkill. How it talks back.

Question: Are we there yet?

Feel the wind coming in fours.

Listen to the seasons galloping. The hunters dropping

quail mid-flight.

Kneel if you’ll take me, lips flushed past open.

Kneel anyway. None above scavenging.

Strays, we made homes out of charcoal, paper, & pinky

promises.

Remember that night on Lake Michigan—how the boy breathed

so loud.

Greenest warmth. The kind young skin can’t treasure.

Once locked, now burning cobalt blue.

Gates, their pale shape, and a lighthouse upside down.

Like the earth, too, begged to dance.