Imagining transcendence
we pinned the wings
of swans to the blunt
nubs of our shoulder-blades
grafting it on.

Although in time
they grew large enough
to give our bodies levity
our laggard minds
took longer.

Neural runways unrolled
slowly, so at first
we mastered simpler stuff.
It changed the way
we slept. Feather beds

demand too much re-making:
instead we turned
face down, or on our sides
under downy blankets.
Intimacy too required

a whole new repertoire,
but the rustling, infinitely
delicate brush of plumage
made learning joyous.
Yet somewhere on the way

we became a solitary pair
the chill of sadness settling on us
unnoticed at first amid the glorious
warmth of our white cloaks.
We ceased to sing

seeing clearly, from
the vantage of our
airy architecture,
how much there was to mourn for
on the awkward earth.

We took up the endless task
of smoothing ruffled feathers.
Preening, we discovered,
was sublime comfort, but still
it turned us away from the world.

So then we tried to cultivate the art
of listening. Intent:
even the air in our bones
listening, so hard we heard their own high
hollow crack, crystals of river ice

re-forming. Now we grow old, and what
we've heard has ripened slowly
into song: one melancholy burst
to sear the earth
before we're gone.