Tonight I will shuck off the too-tight dress
of my skin and let fly that ounce of breath
and bone I carry twined inside myself.
I’ll kiss the river’s thin meniscus –
here at the millpond – where all it asks
is that I swoop and dive; loop the tricks
of my stiletto bill, spinning sapphire
across summer air, ripe and hungry
for purging what’s already lost. I will slice
an avenue, a hide of willow. Each
secret needs water to keep it safe, clean
as larkspur, unfathomable as tears.
I want to seed my song under the bridge
and watch it drop – a dark flare of wing,
whistling from the other side of this:
where I am and what I’ve got; which, tonight –
let me flute you – is seven days of like
meeting like, no storms, a rainbow’s arc. Light.
The strike of grief. My wild turquoise, flying.
From: You are Her, Arc Publications, 2010.