Flying Lessons

She stands before the mirror again,
her threaded seashell spine twisted
in dispassionate disgust as she travels
the familiar valleys, the topography of
self-hatred, her arms outstretched like
a patient crucified on a hospital bed.

She wants to escape the ribcage that
encircles her heart like a chastity belt
to hunger--
She wants to flutter like the feathers
she finds on the beach and only the mirror
can teach her how to fly.

Want nothing, it says,
until the wind rushes through
the gaps between your ribs
and your bones are hollow
rafters where winged things perch.

Want nothing
until your shoulder blades jut out
from your frail back
like birds' wings, or the cupped
hands of a sidewalk beggar.

Want nothing
until your skin is as thin as the
paper kite you flew as a child,
and your body forms the wire
framework: mottled yellow bruising
the blameless sky.

Want nothing
until your nails are hard and brittle as talons
and each breath threatens collapse from
vague traces of triumph over unseen
adversaries, until claws scrape
hardened bedrock, unable to find a
foothold and gnawing jaws crack open,
crack like a porcelain urn, its ashes
a ragged breath condensed--

She gasps
like the sound of an uncorked river
sinking into cool soil, where her fingers
interlace:withering roots, a half-built nest.

Want nothing
until you feel nothing and your blood runs
like water and your hunger dissipates into
apathy, until your body crumples weightlessly,
and the wind carries you above the weight
of a weak conscience, over the unblemished
landscape between your past
and what remains,
freed from the cage
of a skeletal frame.