I Claim This Sky

All winter I have kept vigil
on these lichen-licked branches,
compacting myself like stone.

I’ve laid out the bones of my dead,
glued my bloodied edges
back together,

shredded my pages
and fed them to the wind –
a lost language keeps its own secrets.

I open my wings, show my breadth
to the sky. Feathers splay
like teeth.

Now
I am nothing but myself,
an arrow set for blue.

 

 

Lucy Dixcart is a Kent-based writer. Her poems have been published widely and her debut pamphlet, Faint, was published by Wild Pressed Books in 2020.