Your wings open.

A million years printed on four fluttering  pages.

Before I begin to read, you gather them shut,

Thin  as a line drawn in air, smooth as ash.

In a house lost on the Google map,

You are the rainforest circling my lamp.

The ink on your body is scales fallen

From the eyes of the god of pigments,

Lesser now for his vision. He must kill all

That he loves. What else explains this lamp,

Mistaken for the moon, lit like a pyre?

You have seen your father melt

In lesser flames. Yet you fly through time’s

Winding tunnels, carrying your book to the fire.

The owl’s passage in the woods is a parting of the stars.

He is wise as a congregation. Births cannot better

His chicks. After sunset, it’s slaughterhouse.

He builds a home in the crotch of the night red as Mars.