On a Friday in Philadelphia
1,400 songbirds stormed the windows
and dropped—
skyscraper casualties,
folded and clipped,
a passing broom for requiem
Workers cradled the still warm—
a shock of tender glistened
against the dark forgetful of a city—
bagged them, labeled them
tiny epithets of unmet destinations
West Indies Costa Rica Belize
That hollow bones hitting glass
can break the sound barrier
I have already learned
or that it takes a rain of feather down
to calm a morning of its sick
and break the borough of her fever
We’ve known too long this soft neglect—
compassion must be multiplied by mass
to fledge a movement capable of reach
What more devotion than this—
a bonfire of wings to consummate sky
to plume an altar, to sear our reticence
with an infinite flight
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Jessica Michael‘s work has appeared or is upcoming in The Comstock Review, Into the Void, Allegro, LIGHT, One by Jacar Press, Rebelle Society and others.
Photograph by Osman Rana.
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