Head Full of Feathers

by Ciara Shuttleworth

I run the beach in hopes
years of words, of half–failed poems,
will wing away, lift
over the ferries & crab boats
taking the Strait in to leave
with nothing. Isn’t that
what we all want? To leave lighter,
toward open water, the shore laden
with all we carried
a great distance, with purpose
even, maybe? Georgia O’Keefe
burned all her paintings to move
inland, Santa Fe, to paint without
the old staring her down.
Maybe that’s why I brought
old writing journals to read,
to burn along the shore the night
of the full moon. Maybe that’s why
I drew the grasshopper, the fool,
as my totem animal from the deck
a friend passed. The fool leaps
in hopes of sunshine, a feathersoft
landing this time.