pelican woman

pelican woman,
a sliver of the sky that lost her wings
or maybe cut them off herself,
no one knows but me.
but i have tied my shoelaces
to the roots of the belladonna
and i have braided my hair around these rotted trees.
i have been here
and i have left here,
and i have come back for the serpents.
they know that i will die with them,
in the dirt and in the sea,
they call each other with their silence
but they are here for me.
they are dances, as much as they are death
and they are cold-blooded but not killers
any more than they are livers
and they are not livers any more than any of us are.
so i cut off the feathers that presumed to terrorize my back
and i fell into the mud
like a real, living, breathing being.
how can you know what breathing is if you live in the sky?
you don’t.
you don’t know
until you’ve lived submerged in mud
like some slithering, slinking something
you’ve never lived a minute
and you’ve never breathed a single goddamn breath.
but when you have,
when you’ve been a legless so-called nothing,
then and only then do you know what flying is.
and then, and only then, can you be your own being and your own wings
so i tear open my many shells
and i wait for the blood.
and my veins open to the snakes
but i, too, am a quiet poison
and my venom can swallow theirs like
a lake can swallow rain
so i sink down, among them
and my poison becomes theirs,
and their poison becomes mine,
and suddenly, or maybe not so,
there isn’t any difference.
poison is poison, in thorns or in deadlines
and maybe i die, with them; then again, maybe i don’t.
maybe i grow old and live to see stars fall.
maybe i get to watch my kids play baseball.
maybe i just go crazy, like old general stonewall.
but either way, i lived here
either way, i had my years
either way, i spoke sincere
and that is, really, the only way i ever wanted to have wings.