pluck the imitation
bird from the branches
with stinging fingers,
smelling sickeningly of flowers
the tentative
winter, wretched and floundering
clips your wings and the decrepit limbs
cracking loose,
losing only to reach skyward
slumped low, sewing unbearable
wounds
to wounds, and to
the wounds
breathing fetid
and discarded things
we walk away from
ourselves
a recurrence, the approaching
steps echoing through
a hallway
with a likeness of the way
out,
just pluck me from
the branch.
© 12.29.2014
heather brager
