POETRY

Straightjacket Wings

A poem that does not fly

Photo by Hannes Wolf on Unsplash

The shadow of raven wings
straightjackets my arms.

Feathers bark into my surface
skin, snag into the marrow.
But, from which direction?
Am I the bird or its captive?

The wings weave tighter
in the dark. In the dark,
they do not hold a thing.
My body: a living casket.

My vision: the grave.
My skin will spin a eulogy
of its desquamation; little
flakes that used to be my
surface feather-fall
into nothing.

Rowen Veratome