My childhood and its scent of a bird caressed

I was seven years old

my father used to take me to the circus

inside the circus was an ocean

inside the ocean many green islands

on one of the islands we’d crouch

and watch the seagulls do

what seagulls do best

steal food peck at bald heads

show off drinking seawater

expel the excessive salt

from above their eyes

fear raccoons and squeal

inside the squeal lived

the naked form of music

formed by infinite feathers

inside the sound a wound

in which festered a confusion

birds are singing when they

are clearly calling for each other

calling for god god calling for us

oblivion should be a bird’s career

we meditated on the symphony

of birds a log floating in the sea

of the sky my father looked in awe 

as I looked at my father in awe

in my looking his looking

his eyes were learning to sing 

we envy birds for their feathers

and though I had learned to speak

I could not form the words to say

birds envy us for our words

instead I waited a decade to sift 

those dreams from memories 

borrow mercy as moon 

does sun and stitch 

wings with paper

The title is borrowed from Alejandra Pizarnik.