Launch

Tonight’s writing is in retaliation

Against chains that slither between my creative limbs,

The humdrum mundane plodding that keeps my mind earthbound

And unfree, clips words’ wings from feather to fibula,

Or melts wing-wax to send me plummeting from the pinnacle of invention,

And I fall, fall, fall,

Into left-right-left certainty;

A cubicle,

A keyboard,

A phone,

And files;

So many files

Scattered beneath my elbows like the down of a plucked chicken,

The ignominy of bindings that were supposed to be loosed sometime ago;

And now I wonder if flight is even possible—

I take word wing and launch…

-js 5/6/07