santos scribes

and it was the kind of lonely

without a bottom

or a top

just a free fall

thru an ocean

to a floor

on top of

a great big

spinning planet

an emptiness void of edges even

and still it was assumed we’d asked for it

made demands and offers, wishes really

to be dropped down and in

to experience a piece of it, if only once

once might be enough

but we could have never fathomed this:

a swath of aloneness so far-reaching and true

it touched every one and every thing

the tall crooked tree

the perfect black smudge of a butterfly

the blue creek, who knows it is a blue creek

we were too adaptable

too complex for the context of our shape-shifting

too heavy for our murmurations

so we got good at mimicry

forgot the advantage of our own iridescent voice

of our own iridescence;

the only light source we were ever really responsible for anyway

our bending angles, our endless colors

it was all ours for a moment

but we were starlings, darling

we were starlings

author’s note

for me, a poem that answers the question: “what do you think happens when we are born?”