Flying by my window
crying as you pass
Could it be you’re laughing?
It’s anybody’s guess

More than likely singing
happy to be free
Maybe church bells ringing
but I can plainly see

Every once so often
you peer in for a view
Watch me as I’m writing
in the silence of my room

Sometimes I ignore you
from the corner of my eye
Leaving me a feather
when you think you see me cry

Then you’re off to who knows where
faster than a wink
Feathers on my windowsill
midnight blue and pink

Blowing through my window
Dropping wishes on my floor
Empty as the walls are bare
silence you adore

Always looking for a sign
drains my blood to dust
Frantically I pound these lines
leaving love to rust

Maybe you’ll come back to stay
taunting to no end
Maybe fly away again
with your feathered friends

Not so far off to September
summer falls behind
Obnoxious as the change of seasons
Change of lovers
changing minds

Change like watching Autumn leaves
Fade from green to brown
Documenting hurts and needs
Knowing when you’re leaving town

Hope within the distance of
the wingspan of a dove
Falling into heaven safe
within the wings of love

Falling for the crumbs he throws you
Captured in a cage
Inside looking out behind
the lines inside the page

Maybe space between the lines
Like feathers that you leave
Reminders of some happier times
Endless summers that I grieve

Life plays out on empty stages
As I tap these bitter words
Flying off the gilded pages
Such are love affairs with birds

September is a marker true
A harbinger of ice and stains
Color dies in skies of blue
Broken hearts and love’s remains

Stains like black and blue on flesh
Fadeaway yet never leave
Stains like lies we can’t confess
Or sacred words we can’t believe

Stains like tattooed memories
On sheets of lace and white
Distorting what we think we know
With tricks of time and light

Searching for the reasons
Lovers fly away at all
Spread their wings to block the sun
Kick us when we fall

Memories so overwhelming
Pressing flesh with metal spikes
Unrelenting pressure tainting
Everything we love or like

Pressure as a pen to paper
Footprints walking in the sand
Lipstick outlines on a letter
Or your face inside my hands

Pressure like your lips on mine
Endless kisses wild and free
Reaching for your arm and thinking
If you’re ever scared of me?

Pressure that it takes to knock
Upon your door or on your wall
Lick a stamp and envelope
Lift the phone to take your call

Pressure like the force it takes
To shut the bedroom window tight
Lift your bags out to the lawn
Walk away—switch out the light

Pressure as I hold a feather
Like a quill to write your name
Handprint on my windowpane
All is one and one the same

You were always quick to fly
Make bad situations worse
Not confronting what or why
Best of wishes to a curse

But you left a paper trail
Markers for a measured mind
Sense of failure as a fact
Point of reference for the blind

Set yourself so high above
With words that seemed so pure and wise
Treating those you said you loved
The same as people you despised

I could never know for sure
Find myself still wondering why
The edges of the truth were blurred
Until the day you said goodbye

The feathers for your eyelashes
And feathers on my pillow
Memories fly like ashes
In this story you now follow

You’re always on my windowsill
Eating tears like seeds
Continually reminding me
Of nothing that I need

TM DiSarro

©2023 TM DiSarro / MindScapes Publishing

From my book: EVERY WICKED BIRD