Birdcages at Night

A migration of attention.

There is a loneliness kept in mirrors, something covered in the image, like birdcages at night. I'm trying to tell you about this but my mouth is full of thistles. Speaking of – too many broken pine branches revealed in the melt – too many dead skunks in the road.

What is not complete in me? My mind tries to crawl from oasis to oasis instead of enduring the desert. Do you remember that time at the river? The water made no promises, and the love on the banks had its own language, whispering stop dying.

January sky piles hueless ribbons of light but yesterday, a robin's song took my prayers to heaven and hung them like keys at the door. I smelled the earth for a moment and forgot about the wars and plagues. Deaf politicians and hungry men decomposed. Music of the earth shimmied a little. Wake now.

*

I'm no longer bowing. These garments I wear are confusing to those who are losing power over my life. I suppose this was inevitable after I felt truth of autonomous power. Stop calling me names. I will never be any of those things.

*

No one walks along my inner mountains. No one hears my diminishing echos. One lover knew; one lover stayed.