I lie nested, a moony, rumpled bird,
dreaming up caricatures of flight.
Lax-limbed waiting proves that wings are unlike sails,
demand a casting out to snag their hooks
on the tumbling silk of cloud-marbled sky.
Blue the dispassionate banner of heights
flown by my eyrie — as indifferent toward furled feathers
as blown-away hats and casual mortality —
I should know better the unlikelihood of wind
to net me in the tangle of its sheets,
all a ruffle and rousing of slick pinions
spiriting me high like tented paper.
But I’ve forgotten the flex and crackle
of a sober climb’s full musculature, and
how to measure out the needed
tendon-lengths like strings
for a taut kite:
I’m indolent for the dim and shifting
shadows cast in the caves of my eyes.
