When the bird comes to your hand
you close your fist
and slip into a waking dream
never saying what you mean.
Callow raider on the edge
of my dark unveiled,
lope towards the hazy brink,
trees like lines of scattered ink
against a red horizon.
Your memory is no more
than dust and ash to me,
carried in my mind,
I am a reliquary.
I have seen the way you pin
the meat up high,
threaded through with silver thorns,
butcher bird, awake at dawn,
to taste the sleeping marrow.
Your memory is no more
than dust and ash to me,
carried in my mind,
I am a reliquary.
Put a hair in the wound
to lessen the effect;
you will be home soon,
fabric fraying at the neck
where it is torn.
When the bird comes to your hand,
you close your fist.

SUBMIT CORRECTIONS