Summer 2007 Volume One Issue
Three
Winged Women - Joanne Gardner
My sister birds fly home
to me when winter cedes
to spring's green sponge.
Wings beat wind across my face,
talons clack on stone, the wordless
alto warble -- it rides the scalp, the neck.I sing back with human notes
and bird skin rips away. They step
from under feathered cloaks on smooth
human legs. When autumn fades,
I drape the cloaks across their backs,
sing feather into skin. I feel the need
that fuels the flightmind -- but even were
I born with wings, could I bear
the wrench of feathers every spring,
their arrows in the fall?
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