trained bird

The tracks are showing through your skin
Ripped back by years of wear
Callouses grown and faded
The line moves forever forward
Whether you choose to follow or not
They will reach their destination
With or without you

You lay your pennies down
To slip like bullets through the air and clink into the gravel
Scabby fingers burned by the heat in their eagerness to feel the smoothness of honesty’s monument
Elliptical Polished Hungry

Do you follow foolish tripping along a path travelled
By a memory that would threaten to transform you to a distorted image of yourself
The warning in a whoosh and thrill that leave you breathless
Longing for that ghost who kisses you and gives life to the restless bird
Caged inside your breast
She would fly high over the rules that tick away in front of you
But you must trudge carefully picking over the broken back of this forgotten beast

Watch your step
Twisted briars block your way
Roses whose wild heads hang heavy with perfume
Breathing words you almost hear
But still the path moves on
The thorns snatch at you and plead with you to stay here in your pain
To bleed your prayers into the splintered ties
That bind you hands and feet
As the memory rounds the bend and whistles for your attention
The pain hunts you on this trail of tears and drying bones
There is nothing for you here
Except loss and creosote for your wounds

The rushing is only wind
It cannot hurt you
Only what is carried in the wind
Be mindful
The swirl can lift you it is true
But beware what else has been tossed into this blueness with you
You are not alone
How many others have been raptured only to be dropped without a sound
Broken porcelain birds who were never meant to fly
Appropriately reprimanded
Scolded and humiliated
Left to find their way back
Along this road that has been buried in a world of disbelief
And cynicism that it ever existed

But I have the shining pennies as proof
Shot from the train that passed me
It is a wonder those bullets never harmed us
As children
But now I understand the pain they can inflict
As they work to separate heart and soul from body

That bird was shot months ago
These bones are dry as tears