Storm Trapped in Stone [May 2006]

she is a thing of wind and wings -
one moment solid, one moment fey -
her eyes alight with starfire,
her mind away in flight,
now hissing in birdwarning, now starting in birdfright,
flapping up a fury -

and the sky is dark with fury
of clouds and raven wings,
and the air is charged with fright -
garbage bags whipping like something fiercely fey,
like birds with tattered wings seeking to take flight;
they startle her to instinct, that primal flickering fire -

- like the heat in her belly, anxiety-fire,
as her heart beats a tattoo of thrumming fury -
caged in ribs, trapped from flight,
raging against too-heavy bone, ghost-wings
stretching, straining, reaching for the wind so fickly fey -
ground-chained bird, no way to flee from fright.

thus the panic settles in her breast, the feather-fright
flickering like candleflame in the storm, fearfire
an answer to the shotgun of thunder; she dances fey
and wild, shying, skittering awkward from the fury
of skydrums. she breathes, then, to settle the wings
in her chest and her thoughts, and takes flight -

- not launching freely into air, but flight
on asphalt and concrete; the birdfright
passes, thumpthumpthumping out through the wings
that are her feet, and she is consumed by fire
in legs and lungs; the road soaks up her fury
and becomes her tar-soaked sky, turned fey

and feral by the birdness pouring down, fey
as the moonpaths to another world. this is flight -
or as close as she can get. her body knows the fury
of wind trapped in stone; her mind knows the fright
of the jessed hawk. her spirit bathes in phoenixfire
and within a human shell stretches feathered wings.

there is a feyness in the intimacy of fight and fright -
she knows the feel of flight; she knows immolating fire,
and a fury of feathers fills her dream of wings.