Bound by Feathers
Feather in Bas-Relief
by Allen Edwin Butt, from Poetry Magazine (January 2009)
now. Unable to remake
the thing. And I thought
what should I think—
followed by: spring light looks
like feathers. (Birds
seemed conveniently
decorous.) What then
does this leave I asked
& was surprised to know
so quickly—that my understanding
of what the light & birds
could not be made to mean
would not detract
from them as they
were. Bound by feathers
(a thought, I will admit,
born of artifice alone)
they bore themselves aloft.
What could I counter with?
I, who held my heart
in offering as much for
show as for a fear so deep
I found I couldn't name it.
* * *
