The Weight of Feathers
by James Croal Jackson

 
The web's a tangle of whispers 
when death's a guest in your thoughts–

each pixel a lifeline, each click 
a shout into the void for a voice,

a hand, a reason to stay tethered 
to the pulse of streetlamps.

We're all just lungs and longing, 
aren't we? Pockets brimming

with the weight of oceans, waiting 
for that call to say hold on,

the night's not done with you 
yet, nor the dawn with its promise.

A voice, no face, tells you of better 
days, the script of hope we read 

when words fail our fumbling 
fingers. And I'm haunted 

by the specter of wings, the silent fall 
of a friend into the river's embrace.

I dream of him, cradling birds 
like secrets, leading him down

to water's edge but can't bear 
the thought of those

lost to sky, ones 
that never flew home.

They say I'm grounded, 
but I've seen the sky 

in an embrace, felt the flutter 
of escape in my chest. Metaphors, 

they unshackle us, make gods 
of our clay. But I know, oh I know–

his end was just that, an end. 
His laughter his life, the birds

merely birds. So I lay down 
my arms, my words, my fight.

The world's wet with rain, 
the rush of life, and I am no symbol,

just flesh and bone, kneeling 
in the shadow of giants small enough 

to whisper into night: I'm still here,
still breathing, still a part of this 

vast, unending 
flight.