Bound

Sometimes I was the flame,
sometimes the singed wing
shivering through darkness. Shaking,

practising my tiny scales. Taking 
the long abdomen of my short
life to a lit pane to batter, to burn.

At night, we rushed to open 
our gifts. Pulse and eye of owls’
beats, moon’s glance white over

still pocket parks, slicing 
prey’s lithe bodies, a great hunger 
running the machinery of it all. 

We gave away our days, slept
until dusk’s flutter. Craved					
collision, mazed by what blazed.  

It was night. We were burning
up, young. It was hard to say
who wanted, who made the harm.