#re-accommodation

It should be in the air by now—the plane beckoning the sky to body, a buoy, sky-flown, a way home, but no—bird cage groundborne en route to Kentucky, and all over the news: old man thrown like a rag doll to the floor, face, a split chasm opening to ruby robin throat.

Old bird, who ripped you from the sky and bound you to the ground?

Heaved him up and up by the armpits, birdwings origami-folding into themselves, smashed glasses into neighboring armrest and broke nose into rubble of thin bones— and the cry, oh, the cry! high larynx shriek of owl in the cabin, powerful creature reduced to soft torso splayed naked on harsh scratch of carpet—with every scratch, a feather torn.

Old bird, who ripped you from the sky and bound you to the ground?

His mouth is full of blood, and every plane is a stretcher to carry you nowhere when your body washes up on the shore of a new home, unwelcoming your bent wings and broken beak back to the floor.