John Biscello

I became a bird,

just for a little while.

It wasn’t sorcery,

it was need, a whirling imperative

from or into the unknown,

or perhaps the broken skin

of a bared dream.

I became a bird

and flew up to gather clouds,

something in my tiny beating heart

compelled me to snip and collect

tufts of cloud and store them

in the sudden heart of winter,

or the balmy green crotch of summer,

it didn’t matter,

any season, as a storehouse, would do.

I pecked at clouds, scissored

my way through fibrous threads

of dream-spun cotton;

I collected with the savvy and hunger

of a living omen, a feathered portent,

and then I came back down to earth

and it was over.

I was human again.

All that was left as evidence

of my bird-life were several scattered feathers,

coarse black.

I picked one up

and used its inky edge

to scrawl a single word

on the singed pink of my forearm—

Rain.

I looked up at the sky, the clouds.

Waited. And waited.

The rain didn’t come,

at least not right away.

When it did, it was accompanied

by peals of thunder

and blonde veins of lightning.

Then, the rain, a torrential squall

pouring down upon my head,

my skin,

and the feather in my hand,

recalling with lucid vividness

the time I had become a bird

for a little while

and left behind my forlorn humanity

to gather clouds

and store them

in seasons yet to come.