I sat on my balcony and listened to the blackbird leading the dawn chorus. In the early morning hours, I wrote this poem. I find birdsong so joyous! It uplifts and gives me a sense of freedom.
I sit on the balcony, the moon
not shining in a miner's coal sky.
The birds must know something.
They sing with voices looped
around my breath's plume; pale –
a ghost, an albino wren; its beak
submerged in a lake. A blackbird
is a piccolo; your smooth hands
silkworms, spinning skeins on my
breasts. Your breath, a warm breeze
at the nape of my neck. The white
dove's wings are flutters in my chest
as I stargaze; I look for your heart.
I see your lips in the blackbird's
song. Your whispers beguile me,
is that so wrong?
©2023 Sarah Drury
the starry-eyed mermaid 