Go on, sweep your shadow
across the road. We know your earliest
dreams—that crawled from your mother’s
blood into yours to nest in the hollows
when your bones were thin as quills
and bendable as stems—
still cocoon
like wordless scrolls wrapped in their own silk,
tied to the scaffolding inside
femur, humerus, in those unfinished
wings’ clavicle and scapula, in breastplate
sternum and helmet skull.
We know your secret
vouchsafes wait, your late promise silent
as silver veins, until some morning
you wake to a mineral taste, iron
and clay on your tongue, like dirt and milk,
and you’ll know
what had you trembling nights
you thought you must be afraid. You weren’t
ready is all, till your life wrestled you
to this broken-down place and you’re shaken
loose from your self, then, yes open
your mouth, and release
the moths, your light.