Door of Birds
       

When the hard wind finds the high
          hole and twists words, curls them

                    over, the half-sound, the pennyweight,
the stone blown crows spinning

                    shriek-side-up across the night.
          And the mountain has breath, lungs

                    filled with wings kissed out
to milk thistle the sky. Some say

          souls and the kestrels call and gorse
                    presses hard into the hills. The wild

          light a breeze-beaten candle lays
                    lengthwise on the sill, on the pane,

on the chin of a child flapping
          the shadows of her hands against

the wall's white and the unseen back
                    of the slate outside, stirring chalk

          dust and tea leaves. Some say souls,
others, pressure, a blow dart full

          of beaks and claws and caws window
                    deep in the coal-black air screaming

          newborn or dying interrupting
the weakest stars, the slender moon.

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Copyright © 2015 John A. Nieves All rights reserved
from Southern Humanities Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission