these pages
pressed hard with ink
as i weave with my
gathered bird skeletons-


their wings essential and clean
as a needle
strings


strings
spilling out of me
i am the flesh of the fruit
my maraschino veins
popping like cherries


i was watching my cousin
die on the pavement,
his shirt on backwards,
then i took a nice suburban
bicycle ride with
my grandfather's rusty-bellied yellow bike
for mellow sights of passing flowerbeds,
square lawns buzzing
like my fingertips.


i am such a big girl now
speeding across the earth
like a feral, black-winged bird
everything jangling inside.
noise, noise.
exquisite as these pale
metres of skin stretched across
bone after bone.


traintracks,
and my father leaving coins
while i lost my balance
by those rivers
full of light on american holidays.


yes,
i have always wanted to swim across a river.