Birds

her voice
flew silently
ashy white
like pigeon feathers
over city rooftops
reaching me
in jaded country settings

rural sunsets
carried silhouettes
of crows calling me
to release myself from within
it was her voice I heard
dancing through the cornfields
behind the football stadium

morning snowfall
led me down dirt back roads
to stand in painful stillness
and listen for her voice
on the wings of Canadian geese
while branches above me
dripped wet with impending spring

a woodpecker’s tapping
incessant knocking on doors
or fingers drumming on my shoulder
begging me to turn around
and feel the breeze of her words across my face
make all the tears return home
blackened by love’s stagnation

her winged sounds still haunt
dull pains beginning with the heart
and ending with the sex
until i am spent and dry
listening to the bird cries
and straining to hear her voice above all the rest