Bird Falling

sophia feels the need to cry,
watching crows gather like horse-rain,
liquid under telephone lines.

she needs their witchcraft--

they have her curtain-drawn face,
she sees the rest of her life
in their split-pressure mouths.

sophia remembers being burned at 9,
staring like water stones
at yellow sun; how her arm
was almost beautiful before the pain,
as bone-cored birds falling,
gray sculptures singing with dead eyes.

a zebra-coal sky is listening
like a hostage for god,
is tangled fish in tar,
rubber-trembled,
long, scream-dark music.

sophia burns quiet like perfumed thighs,
one coma hand tracing her face,
chasing chatter-asthma
ghosts through brown hair.

First published in Ash Canyon Review, Summer Issue 2005