Voice from the Wreckage: Flight 1016

     Circle
my smoldering bones,
wrist-hinge and shin. Shine
your false light, searching
for what I am not.
     And when you stagger
upon my lone gold ring, you will
be wedded to absence. I am
a tissue-thin strain
to add to the earth’s striata:
bloodfall, breastmilk, body
of little but water, rich vein
of memory you are measuring.

     So I will tell you:
one sharp breath was all we took away.

Now my sigh, gauze lung in the leaves,
feeds your zeal for flame. And when
the light bird lifts, filled
with flesh, I leave you
     hungered.