Flutterings

 

Feathered heads emerge,

beaks and wings

jab-poke the flesh

of my tongue, my cheek—


Messengers, mayhem,

a storm of cobalt weather


Tear out of my mouth

leaving me hingeless,

coughing and grabbing

at my throat.


These are the secrets

long tied behind my teeth,

pinned upon my mattress,

spread wide between my sheets...


And they leave me

bloody, scratched, undone.


The truth I never

dared to say

has grown wings

and gone in search

of land,

And the world will

gasp

as they come stomping,

stomping,

filling the cloudless sky.

 

 

 

A freelance writer and editor by trade, Jessica Laroche lives with her husband and two children in rural New Hampshire, where the drama of the changing seasons and quietude of the surroundings inform her poetry. She is currently at work on her first book of fiction, The Spider and the Lotus.