Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Flightless Master by Sarah Rose

My caged bird sings1 a screeching dirge
For me, conceiving company:
With one two souls are born,
Yet rosy cheeks alone,
Give refuge to the piercing thorn.

We shake, we shiver, we split in two.
Like Victor2, a beast
We father-forth
Of dappled origins.3 Of murky passion
And golden eye; of partial torture
And paternal tethering.

His feathers do we clip in prayer
And suffer the fear of fall.
Yet sole-prints that we vain collect,
Fain joy from sod and soil.
A tug-of-war we wage within
To reach the distant sky,
The wingèd beast is not our friend
But can I watch him die?