The Gift
       

He's building me a tiny birdcage
of wire twisted

from the bed we no longer
share. I watch him working

with the bottom of an empty
bottle for its domed shape—

his fingers forming the rod & hook
on which it will hang

resemble a reaper's
scythe. Inside he strings

a whale shaved from bone
meant to twine around a neck.

It means I can leave, if I must.
It means he'll send me off

in loveliness, from the base materials
of our shared & lonely lives.

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Copyright © 2016 Jennifer Givhan All rights reserved
from Landscape with Headless Mama
Pleiades Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission