The sparrow

She has lived on my skin for 15 years.
A promise of return;
the darkness always temporary.

I never thought of myself as an eagle.

I don’t consider love to be god,
Because, I don’t believe in god.

I believe in love more than
the migration of birds.
More than the science of flock.

My talons are full of gold;
I pull threads from others,
moments when hues glow so white
they blind the eyes I gather from.
Long, canary threads stringed from
tear ducts so clogged with saline
that color is only a shatter of light;
to bright to understand.

I am still tethered.

Occasionally, even the sparrows
tell me to run. That the return
doesn’t always bring each bird back.
Nature doesn’t always comply and
knowing when to perch is poetry.
The god spark is merely
gold threads of love linking

person to person to person to person to person.

I keep the golden links in my heart
secret and safe, like heavy chains of armor;
dreams that come true the moment
I say them out loud.
And, the dreams that others
choke on when silenced,
teeth-breaking creatures ready to escape.
Tongues that hold flight hostage.

I’ll love you no matter the damage.
You and you and you and you and you.

Even when words bite,
when fear eclipses the goldmine of stars
in your own spiral of chaos.
When you look with eyes glued.
Stop words in your throat,
tape mouths shut to keep it all in.

When you collapse into another.
Forget the moments from earlier seasons.
When you step off a cliff and
forget you can actually
fly instead of fall.

When I am suddenly unknown,
I molt and turn. A bird of prey.

I hunger only for myself.

My flock of witches remind me;
the eagle is only the beginning.
I am the blood of sparrowhawks.
The coven migration of
bruised beaks and black hearts.
You are enchanted,
…..and you are scared.

When scared spirals
to earth, I fly.

I am not a swallow;
I do not return.
I have this heart.
I have this blood.