Wingless

by Dan Raphael

an owl inside myself
cold in the marrow of clawed flight
by the heat, the hunger, how grass sings
what won’t be snapped by this light
falling through ground, skinned by time
speed o flight, shades of balance
through a door or window or what’s not here yet

the milieu of to go, non–stop, slow trickle
of fuel like backwards rain, a sliver of aligning
cursive circumstance smoothing round a bevel
of conic perturbation, as we close in on
where the “welcome to” sign’s population never wavers

sleeves reversed unstained, delivered to this address
a concatenation of numbers, the satellite of having been before
orbit no one, keep nothing from finding its rest
levels full above and below, everyone else is taken

more wing than body, more hunger than wing
always a little night stashed in me
allergic to sunrise, immune to dusk
fewer windowsills to perch on
this city–wide menu, sometimes gathering up
whatever nears first, sometimes the easy targets
trailing the herd

doors like wings, like screw top lids
doors that open for hallucinations
mirrors projecting what 1 don’t want behind me
knocking on air, a dial tone I’ve never heard
from inside the wall reaching through the roof
hollow as a toaster, coils of dust and orange news print,
pre–interstate roadmaps with several blank spaces circled
reaching from the flat page to keep me from turning it
scratching states like lottery tickets, pasta

pretending to be streets, green stubble
too lost to land on
the smallest get to dig first, climbing the food ladder
from below the ground to within the sky
from stomata to stomachs to rivers as sporadic as
a clock with seven hands, I take 3 steps back and lose an hour
I draw the black curtain stained with constellations
with no visible source of power

the face behind the hair on the back of my head
as my bald dome goes from new to full in ways I can’t depend on
remembering to feed my itches, moisten my seeds,
entertain sudden ideas and let sleeping resentments
not take wing, silent when hungry, radiant with need