Uncaged
As dusk slithers closer
Snow crawls up windows
Kneeling in places where
No one will pass tonight
Visions spark so chimney’s leap
A motion longing to wrap itself
In a tattered lunge; opening, closing
Their low silhouettes breathe flames
In a corner women with injured voices
Examine each others cages
While old men smoke, sit on rungs
Preen back and forth and back again
Abandoned by mothers— fathers
You, wide-eyed and open-mouthed
They’ve become blinded to your frame
Back-lit in doorways, empty houses
Men follow you on the street
Like bad whiskey in the wind
Calling to you in their loud hatreds
Daughter of Jezebel, slut, bitch, whore
Smother you with their raw vulgarities
But you, with your tattered petals
Step away from their cruel histories
Your fragile beauty belongs elsewhere
Woman-child; oh captive songbird
They cast you aside in their muteness
Their teeth should have stilled you
Yet water shines through your wings
Any cat knows what to do in the aviary
Why not attempt the truly brazen
Lift the eyelid of each word from its pulse
Give them Keats lingering on a waist
Or Dickinson with moss on her lips
Clasp a rusty owl’s song to your breast
When the rains broken accent falls
Fling open the doors— set your cage ablaze
Selena Howard© February 5,2012
