Having Never Flown - MUSE FUSE

Never Having Flown

We
only heard
a small noise
there being
no space
within the
conversation
to sense a simple
thud in the bird cage.
I saw instead a yellow crumple of feathers still
breathing faintly in the hot night that we had filled with toxic air
of our imagination drifting to war and the human condition:
drifting to ghost dances in the distant plains of the Great Spirit
caged-up, starved and died under the night sky
like this yellow
bird never having
flown. I cup it in my
hand, weeping at the
softness of her feathers as
I place her back in her
cage to die under
the night sky.
I should have
let her
fly
free
when
she still
had the
strength.