Paper Bird
Paper bird, fly
through the flames of your own heart
and emerge unscathed,
emerge black and brittle,
and dissolve into the air.
Paper bird, sing,
for the eyes of the world are not upon you
and they never have been
and you are nothing, you are nobody,
singing the dreams of only your heart,
love for a figment of your own fingers
as it is written across the page.
In the hollow of her heart she knelt,
Cradling a feather from the paper bird
in her own pale hands
And crooning softly, she folded it,
two sides to touch, to open, bloom
into a paper bird
the size of her thumbnail.
She raised her hands to her mouth
and whispered softly:
Paper bird, be.
On the wind of her breath
on wings of her creation
the paper bird lived.
9/02
illustration
main poetry page
back to the beginning
