The Lighthouse Dove
--
A poem
I dreamed I was a dove
with white wings tinged red.
I flapped into your lighthouse
and dripped onto your shoes,
spilling into the cracks underfoot.
You gasped, afraid I was dead,
but I wanted to tell you those
feathers, these eyes, that beak,
were part of my suit — the thing
that held me upright and then lay
on the ground, empty, discarded.
You didn’t hear me, so picked and
scraped beneath your feet,
trying to bring me back to life
and all the while I watched from the
ceiling, as you plucked feathers out
the floorboards and grieved over
my crimson coat and wept salty waves
of sadness and tossed little boats
up and down with your heartbeat
until you were too tired to pluck
and scrape and the ocean became still
and the real me flew home.
Copyright © 2018 Bridget Webber. All rights reserved
