Swallows

Her eyes never settle, but flitter in her skull—

slowly wild like flame behind the blackened glass

of lanterns in her flooded home. Columbus Day.

She tells us a story of the storm—

how the thunder bawled, the windows

whined, strained and shattered.

My brother holds her talon hands. I see her

in my mind, child-eyed with cheeks

like a watercolor chorus—

not the hounded, narrow jowls

she wears now.

She weeps of the dog she saved—

Marionette,

who crouched from the rain

down through the gaping frame of the window

blown out by the wind,

who passed over glassy teeth, straight back

into the black throat of her basement.

Mom says:

She shook off the rain

and gnawed at a bit

of copper piping

caught in her ribs.

And I want to save her.

My brother holds her hands, the wire fingers.

I watch her eyes—

like watching a pair of etherised swallows

be tossed away like this                                                                              into that skittery storm

and forgotten.

I begin to wonder if they used to chitter,

calling raucously across the bridge of her nose

or if they used to sing

in the morning behind the thickets of her eyelashes.

I wonder if they ever dreamt themselves awake.

I wonder if they thought themselves born then came to life,

or if someone found them and cast them away into her sockets—

the way you might save two moths from an overflowing sink

then flick them out the window.

We sit her down weary, already coughing dust—

a flame on a wick

blown out by the thinnest wing.