BIRTHDAY POEM

Open a box with a box.
Open a bottle with a box.
Open a bottle with a bird.

Remove the paper creased into
   place and write the bird.
Write ivy white wrist bones
   against a brick wall
Write its wings.
Write forgiveness, like a hinge.
Write its trackway.
Write how to trust things with edges.
Write its eyes.
Write the cobbled grief of undoing.

Put the bird back in the box.
Now write the bird.

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BODIES AS

As a suffix.
As a bird.
As direction.
As a binding, as a book.
As measure of holy.
As portions, as pure.
As castled into roughness.
As auguries of warmth.
As auguries of lust.
As proof of addiction.
As favissa of temples, as temples.
As windows in churches or clerestory to a heavy, nameless thing.
As red and most visible.
As doorframes, as bones.
As entrance to endings.
As approximation of an alphabet.
As catalog of wound and salve.
As tools, as corners, as tactile names.
As antecedent to surrender.
As wrecking, as wreckage, as reckoning.
As bodies.
As reckoning.

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on BIRTHDAY POEM: I wrote this poem after hearing of a game where a group of different people were all given random objects and assigned to open a capped bottle with them.