Monopsany

At age twelve my head was full
Of little feathered monster plucking
Their scaly feet from the thin sheaths of conversations
Wrapping round my neighborhood block.
Pushing their bodies up in the warm Arlington updraft—everything,
Muscle and bone, pulling away
From the hand of a needy mother’s mechanics.

The clapping of her clouded lips never scared me.
She couldn’t keep me if I ran. I ran fast, ran against her hail
And bolt hands. I found doors were only locked if I didn’t open
Them so I sent wood knots spinning on their hinges.

And as I grew the air turned sour so I
Flew south with those winged boogiemen.




now those plump feathered plumbs swath
the ice wires that hanging just outside
my third story apartment’s blue wintered
windows. Their bodies cooling,
as they coo one another for warmth.

i light up, glide more time down
my throat, phrasing my smoke, exhaling:
feathered souls drift south when snow settles—
nicotine makes me speak in local headlines.

again i look out watch each plop
of little feet weigh down the spun-glass
word of telephone wire dipping it closer toward
our electric-spun mother.

each mass of down unaware of exactly how thin time
is as it sags under their tightly clutching fingers.

i’ve tried to avoid those graceful black bodies
from weighing thought down but in a frenzied white winter
updraft it’s hard to want winter to pass.
and i watch, thinking: a man dies
alone—sometimes.