Self-Portrait with Flightless Bird
I gave myself the body
of a secretary bird—
long legs like accusations,
a face too sharp for comfort.
But wings? I borrowed
from a taxidermied dodo:
soft, irrelevant,
stitched to the wrong century.
In the background,
a sky I did not earn.
In the foreground,
a foot poised to crush a snake
that looks suspiciously like me.
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