Walking now
through the year
I tried to fly,
when I hung at the bottom
of a chimney,
how I landed on the wall
above the piano,
how I fell into the black
top and
hid.
The air tells me I am desperate.
to be a crow,
a finch,
whisper yes to a sparrow
& speak
from a bag
of teeth or
be carried as a burden.
The birds and I,
gurgling,
chamber music
and wanting
something about limits fancy
and flights.
I imagine this: the eagle
descending
on the sled
and snatching
it, the bushtit
in the cage,
the owl peering out,
Rubies throbbing
through
the streets
And waiting
for me
in the wind.
Rowan Waters (they/them) is a queer poet and MFA candidate hailing from the forests of the PNW, currently living in Oakland, California. With a deep fondness for all things creepy, crawly, and understoried, their poetry attempts to use language and sound as a means to enact the interrelations of the human and more-than-human world. They have previously published poems in The Cooper Point Journal and TheElephant Room Zine.