Not a step
but a plunge from a precipse.
The chill of blood whipping itself blue,
the swoop that wrenches out my guts.
I am sightless to the beach below,
and shrink to the crack of rapacious waves
lungeing like hunting cats
on the fragmenting rocks.
If I drop,
they’ll pounce.
Fangs will tear me
pulp me
pound me-
Oh God- God!
Living on an Isle of Flightless Birds
I extract from wizened lungs
these aimless squarks
and pluck at knotted tawny feathers,
knowing that only my shambled pads of freezing claws
can draw me closer to an edge I’ll never reach
or soar to meet that great and daunting deep.
