gravity always wins.

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