Tweezers Free a Girl
Constance plucks an eyebrow into a fine
line. A starling
pecks
a moth (speckled, frantic)
into dull portions of flight. So. Invisibles
are
invincibly legion. A girl enacts perhaps
with her feet. Rattling her patents over
a lawn
all
public and thick with plates of maple bark.
Wind dies. A girl refuses each directive
to halt
and
mourn herself. Roof chips fall, flash,
fall from apartments that crouch
and
effervesce behind the leaf scrim. Grackles,
too, sparrows, robins, chickadees:
all
these nervous squads ripple out
between spotted, straight-laced maples.
Constance remains
ungiving
around her improvised
may poles la da la di-
elms
rehearse a strict parade in their heads
while their limbs snip flounces
out
of updraft and groundcover, layering a sky
within the sky. One that finally pushes back.
