Uncommon Ancestor
I am wearing heavy feathers
with the gaze of the day lit to my backside.
A rotisserie routine,
hot with punishment and prayer.
Prayer for punishment,
punishment for prayer.
Answers from a sky beaded in blue birds,
upon gods’ supposed pretty blue fabric.
Crowned crows and drowned geese
barking their bird songs—
like god’s dog, a dog’s god.
Feedback fed back to my waterproof back.
Backed by waterproofed ears.
No water, no proof.
Not even of the air.
Myself, essential as an appendix,
wise as a wisdom tooth.
A modern sticky taste of evolutionary distaste.
An undriven itch paraded down a forked road.
Forked, ed;
I ask silver why,
silver when?
All it knows is where,
the non-knowing of a mouth.
Only a stabbed, spoonfed reflection,
down a downed throat.
Only, gagged.
Only, only, only.
One and only,
twice and only,
third and only.
Words like a broken car,
braking on my tired back.
Treaded wrong,
treaded right in the in-between spot.
Stubborn and beige as the day.
Shining with the sheen of a hydrophobe,
a homophone,
a synonym.
Silver seal skin,
sealed in,
sealed out.
Worn—all worn—over unmatched elbows
dripping dropped drops.
Pointed pens drawing the ink
down from my cupped jaw.
Southern drawn tears
written on a northern face.
Tearing torn words on the papered table,
cornered into torn corners,
soiling the bread on the table.
The bacon,
this belly fat.
Migrations rations.
A seasoning.
Sprinting, flying flavors
chased to the next season.
Only less of a lesson when school’s out,
only school’s never leave school.
Schools make students,
and fish,
and pheasants,
and flies,
and men.
Always an agent,
always a pharaoh.
Concealing the pyramids,
stealing cerulean.
Never claimed,
never claimed to claim.
But claimed clams
and bitten birds,
spun on a spit and spat on;
We all are—
all we are.
Copyright © Esther Icarus | Year Posted 2025
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