Murmuration
by Rachel L. Watson
Murmuration of Starlings:
practiced in conforming,
expert at distorting.
Convulsing mass, circulating
as the sun once spun
with the dust of its former self.
Hoping the amalgamation of feather
is enough to interlock.
Delaying the day
its gravity is
dismembered.
Murmuration of Starlings
gatherer of thought and prayer
Gatherer of Despair
Romanticizer of pain
to give it a name
November air the buoyancy of wings
stagnant in the pool of wind
The only hope of landing
a crop emptied
at the hands of harvest
As autumn weighs itself,
the body listens for shape.
murmuration of starlings
practiced in conforming
expert at distorting
flocking so futile
it forms to fall apart
language scattered to the wind
as soon as it begins
so far from the nest
it no longer remembers
the purpose of birth