learning-to-fly

The cream colored wraps that bind them Look as if the fibers will tear: Thin onion sheets to give way at any given moment And the raisin contents inside will shrivel and glisten in the light. Puckered like disease and leather, Once functioning bodies Now hug their knees in brine. I am too wrapped in thick papyrus or cotton, A peel that mimics theirs. My sinews look tired and vacuumed. I mirror the sad wretched state of dehydration. Vinegar and relief scuttle like Kafka beetles Under my cloth. Deflation rather than release from my own broad layer, The strangled air is sucking oxygen for dearth. I turn and show myself to them