My day spent watching exhibits lent itself
To watching people instead
Whispering abject secrets to life-stolen
Birds, stuffed with once known shapes
Of elements within the cases
Sweet kisses made for them
Hoarse coughing layering the glass
He leaned for that cough
He placed his spit and germs on purpose
On that spot
On that glass
Birds sit on branches, watching out
Watching for spit globules
That might ruin their feathers
That might ruin their preservation
Or their glass
Awkward whispers of my own
Into beeping recorder
Worried that I might provoke this beast
Who yearns for the wing-ed reptiles
While I think again of the millipedes floors below
Layers below the soil
Where the mites rest in group with them
Where the arachnid classed mites
Didn’t feed on the millipede,
Finding there a soft haven
A bundle of vermin
On my walk home
I wonder at my haven
I wonder at that Xray
That I always wanted
Where among my bones
Were chitin sprawls
Eight pointed
With bulbous mothers lying
In the spaces between
And the portrait
That would surely inspire awe
When they slipped through
Pockets in my skin
Nigh imperceptible
As their silken cords
That will stretch outward behind me
A million dangling legs
Blowing in the wind
From a million strings
As the bird whisperer
No longer worried
With glass cases
Strums his fingers
Across this harp
Lost now of its ends
Breaking off with parachutes
To ride the breeze
Where some will become
Homes to those parasites
Arachnid love children
Clinging to mother for
Haven
Climbing inside
Their web ways
A spun out nest
Eyes aware of the birds,
Desperately hugging branches
With all eight limbs
These birds receive no whispers
No divine truths from the
Mouth that leaves kisses
On the glass casing
These birds are wild and
free.
To watching people instead
Whispering abject secrets to life-stolen
Birds, stuffed with once known shapes
Of elements within the cases
Sweet kisses made for them
Hoarse coughing layering the glass
He leaned for that cough
He placed his spit and germs on purpose
On that spot
On that glass
Birds sit on branches, watching out
Watching for spit globules
That might ruin their feathers
That might ruin their preservation
Or their glass
Awkward whispers of my own
Into beeping recorder
Worried that I might provoke this beast
Who yearns for the wing-ed reptiles
While I think again of the millipedes floors below
Layers below the soil
Where the mites rest in group with them
Where the arachnid classed mites
Didn’t feed on the millipede,
Finding there a soft haven
A bundle of vermin
On my walk home
I wonder at my haven
I wonder at that Xray
That I always wanted
Where among my bones
Were chitin sprawls
Eight pointed
With bulbous mothers lying
In the spaces between
And the portrait
That would surely inspire awe
When they slipped through
Pockets in my skin
Nigh imperceptible
As their silken cords
That will stretch outward behind me
A million dangling legs
Blowing in the wind
From a million strings
As the bird whisperer
No longer worried
With glass cases
Strums his fingers
Across this harp
Lost now of its ends
Breaking off with parachutes
To ride the breeze
Where some will become
Homes to those parasites
Arachnid love children
Clinging to mother for
Haven
Climbing inside
Their web ways
A spun out nest
Eyes aware of the birds,
Desperately hugging branches
With all eight limbs
These birds receive no whispers
No divine truths from the
Mouth that leaves kisses
On the glass casing
These birds are wild and
free.