after Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to be perfect,
but you must be mutable,
dimpling under prodding fingers,
ever prepared to succumb to beliefs that claim more power
than the rock pulled from the earth to build its church.
My chest ached with love for the world that
I was not allowed to express.
My innocent animal desires, disguised as
human nature, were smothered and condemned.
I tell you my despair, but you will not hear it.
At the exasperated desperation of my screams,
even the wild geese hiss and scatter.
Even the wild geese have jagged teeth, hungry with judgement,
biting at my fingers, outstretched in longing –
longing for a body that will never match mine,
longing for a man to love me as another man,
longing to find poetry in a life I never wanted to live.
Meanwhile, the sky captures more of the sun.
Meanwhile, words drown out the wind, and
engines rumble above the tired waves.
Meanwhile, the wild geese fall from the heavens,
like leaves prematurely pulled from branches,
red staining their downy, plastic-filled bellies.
Rubbing the feathers between my fingers,
I beg for a god that never saved me,
never saved the wild geese,
and forgot to assign me my place
in the family of things,
but I only hear the rhythmic thumping of time.