Vagabonds: Anthology of the Mad Ones Vagabonds Vol. 3 | Página 12

Thoughts of Birds
Emily Ramser
In the shower,
my hands fold over my heart,
making the wings of a dove,
and they flutter.
They flutter like
a caged bird now free.
I think back to the lovers I’ve had,
and I wonder if they ever
grew the wings
they always preened.
My fingers flutter, growing
feathers hanging bells
from the tips to tell the wind
that I’ve arrived,
and I think back to the men
whose lips I pressed my own to,
to the birds I flew alongside
and whose talons I tangled my own in.
I think of the eyeless one
and the one with the hole
dripping black blood
amongst the colored feathers
of its puffed chest.
The rain pounds my back,
droplets dripping down the feathers
I arranged in a cloak so carefully
around my skin to keep away the fingers
of wandering frosts,
and as the sky cries, I think
of the bird whose beak never closed,
the one who sang his song to those
with closed ears
and of the northern one who could not settle,
who could not stay, dreaming
nightmares of peach trees under cloudless skies.
The water touches my face, caressing the beak
I’ve molded with paper-mache,
and my fingers flutter, now
wings of downy new feathers, and
I raise my arms till they hit
faux-porcelain wall and shower curtain.
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