Feather Mammy

Frozen at the moment of inception

Cold beyond thinking

Father’s mother’s

Sister’s brother’s

Daughter’s

Son

Hips bones connected to the thighs

And the world keeps,

Feather mammy

Can’t keep still

Turning

Hammers knocking like a heart

On my ribs

Pulse thickening

Mind at a dead

Stop

Birds crackle overhead from

A sky electric

Grammar forms as ice

Rimed around my

Arms legs

The growl of a stomach outside

My door opens

And I walk through

My soul takes wind

I am born a loft

Perspectives clash lost in fog

Horns roar, I dance

Horns roar, I dance

My shoes don’t fit

Too well

One to ten counting quickly

Puts a finger on it

Chicken skin fits like shit

Red plumes and quills

Feathered

Shake a leg it won’t come off

Arms without bodies

Nothing to eat for days

Come in

Sit down

Working like a bee grown

Older than I’d care

Looking towards the sea

For something

To change

Writing into a corner cut

Off by letters

Feet out of control from

Warm applause I bow

Before you

Running up the mast

Like a flag I

Wave and wave

At where I think

You might be

Singing changes the mouth’s lines

And talking makes

Shapes in my back

Like chain links

And iron scales

Feather Mammy

Ran out

Of reasons