You sleep like a feather
Slipping silently
From the nest of a dove
Over a river at night
Just one note from a
Muffled song
Even just a slight breath of air
And there you are
Drifting down
To the icy water
Wide awake
Me?
I sleep like a brick
Like shoes made of concrete
Encased in the mud
Beneath the bridge
Beneath the fishes
A mouth full of gravity
I sleep on borrowed time
That I could not pay back
I owed too much
To the wrong people
And now that I’m down here
I will not be moved
So you can imagine my surprise
To wake beside the river
With eleven downy white feathers
Woven into my beard
Dripping wet
Feet bloody and sore
Surrounded by shattered concrete
I am overcome with freedom
Running up the embankment
Skipping across the bridge
Where I last saw my captors
What shall we do today?
I will eat waffles with Benjamin Franklin
I will play Frisbee with Icarus
(who will be jealous of my feather-beard)
I will drink wine from a torn paper sack
I will buy flowers for the mother of the world
I will buy guns and fire at will
And I will miss every time
I will grow restless
I will grow a garden
I will manage the forest
Behind my father’s house
Where I will rearrange the furniture
And build Stonehenge from the cushions
And reenact ancient rituals
Like scenes from my childhood
I will do all of this before lunch
After that I will be misunderstood
I will be misapprehended
I will be apprehended
I will stand accused of my crimes
I will be tried and convicted
I will be stripped naked
And humiliated in the town square
I will be awake for all of it
And when the angry mob comes
To bind my hands and feet
And drop me in the river
I will sing all the way down
While I wait for your feather to fall
Wide awake
We will laugh together
Beside the river
Again
And you?
You are my true friend
I just wish sometimes
We could sleep together
Without my swan song disturbing
Your quiet nest
