The universe breathed through my mouth

when I read the first chapter of patience.

I held the book away from my body

when the illustrations became life-like:

the kite flew over the grass, a child tumbled

down a hill and landed at the mouth of neon waters.

The fox curled into itself under the tree

and an eagle parted the sky like the last curtains.

I found myself wandering the forest, revising

the stories as I worked the heavens.

I lived inside the candied house

and hung the doors with sweetness.

I devoured the windows and I was greedy.

With all this sugar, I still felt trapped.

I sought to change the moral

so I filled my baskets daily with strawberry,

thorn, and vine, piled my home

with pastries and the charge of regret.

I placed those regrets inside the oven

and watched the pie rise. I wanted

everything in the pie and yearned

all the discarded ingredients.

I kept myself in the kitchen for years.

Everything up in smoke and yet my apron

was pristine, my hair done just right.

You can say it was perfection, a vision

from the past, waving a whisk through a bowl

as if it were a pitchfork. When I left the house

made of confection, that’s when I began to live,

for everything I gave up was in that house.

I remember you there. Your fingerprints vaguely

visible in the layer of flour on the table.

Palm-sized and fledgling, a beak

protruding from the sleeve, I

have kept my birds muted

for so long, I fear they’ve grown

accustom to a grim quietude.

What chaos could ensue

should a wing get loose?

Come overdue burst, come

flock, swarm, talon, and claw.

Scatter the coop’s roost, free

the cygnet and its shadow. Crack

and scratch at the state’s cage,

cut through cloud and branch,

no matter the dumb hourglass’s

white sand yawning grain by grain.

What cannot be contained

cannot be contained.