Poetry Bird Susan Durant

Neptune Blue
(poem 16. from "Neptune Blue ")

When the garden snake with yellow diamonds becomes your bird in a cage and all the feathers shed unexpected like leaves from trees in spring

When the Black Panther in the alley is really a gray wolf and you hear the last good-bye though you have no words for proof

When your fist of strings breaks loose from your grip and your rainbow of balloons explodes to plastic shreds, you contemplate the skeleton that just crawled from your bed.

Is it you or is it me?

Your world turns too cold not to submerge from its icy wind. Hold your breath while you fall and the planets rearrange. Detangle from the grip of bony knuckles you mistake for a hug, this

Anchored illusion that drowns you in thief’s love, this wingless angel that makes you want to forget a fool’s bliss, this shadow that makes you hope you forget how to dream because

Now, at the edge of reckless release you see the bird, not a bird, never was yours and a snake cannot break the nature of snake.

You’ve been there. Everyone who goes there and lives, comes up empty handed at some point. You broke the galaxy with the red ricochet of

Your heart, ripped off star tails cutting light into dark. When you hit the crust of hot air on your thrust back to earth, all that got through was your soul.

Romance that tears away flesh and crushes bone leaves you an aura with a much softer hue, one the powdery, cool atmosphere of Neptune Blue

~ Copyright © 2008 by Susan Durant. From Neptune Blue. Used by permission of the author.

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