Twelve Days Poem by Katelyn Hinman

awaiting that yellow bird
i settle like marine snow
ardorous, flat-on-my-face

twelve days
is the pulley restraining infalliable truth
that wants to jump past lips and into ears

my being locks into your skin
packing myself tight into each delicate roadway
of veins and arteries
a longing to be the molecules of carbon dioxide
expelled with each and every staggering breath

there is no need to slip a band over your beak
there is no need to clip the flight feathers
beneath your butter-colored wings

i am the one who will peck at your insides
i am the one who will scatter in a squall of frightened cries
and a panicked flurry of flight