all night while owls tap at the window
sending Morse love poems to Athena.
They know I don't trust the air--not since Athena left.
I wear this bulky space suit everywhere, even into my dreams.
A fixer with a burlap bag gathered the owls and brought them back,
along with window glass, some putty, and a frame.
Now my lungs discuss the view, plan pilgrimages, and pointedly exclude me.
Athena loved the poems I could breathe out at will,
but wearied of my ladder collection and habit of communicating only by hieroglyph.
Now everything is lungs, owls,
night, space suits,
and the stilling of the back door still redolent
with Athena's scent and the trackless void of my own exhalations.
_____
(belatedly cos my I was off the grid) for Sunday Muse #79.
I love all the owls and the wearing of protective gear. Smiles. The lungs planning pilgrimages that exclude you is such a wild thought. I love the unexpected in your poems, and it is always there.
ReplyDeleteAs always you have captured loss and love in such a unique and poetic way that I am in awe Shay! I love so many lines that I would have to quote the entire poem, but if I were to pick one it would be the first stanza. You had me at my lungs speak one to the other! I adore this poem Shay!
ReplyDeleteThat last stanza ... sigh. So fulfilling.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most effective things that you do with words, Shay, is to make us see them in totally new ways--lungs that speak to each other, owls that send Morse code through air that is both the haunting elixir of a fading perfume, and unbreathable, untrustworthy...the softness of this poem falls like a witch's cobweb on a wound,but will it heal or will it only make one more vulnerable? You are doing some amazing work, dear BFF.
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