By Clara Collins.
You left long gouges in the wallpaper
the day you found your way
into the chimney, down its long column,
careening out, ink footed, your crow eyes
solid black, each with a white panic dot inside.
The clatter of your sudden body
on the hard glass embedded in my throat,
made a home there. You told me
to sit at the feet of my mother, to keep watch
while she dried her hair, my eyes flitting
up to the light caught between her hands,
that wild shape. I swallowed your fringed shadow,
the unfurl of your wings, a danger,
my fear: a shield to protect her.
