by Kyla Houbolt

Butterflies go still in flight.
Tying neat bows in the once alive air.

I never know what shape
the birds will draw
as they arc across the sky and you think
oh scribbles but what if
it’s a code, and the birds saying
if only there were more of us
we could complete the message
and open the stars.

And I could dance on this cupcake.
Let me just go down the mine
with sharpened feathers and diamond eyes.

There’s beautiful Sarah, immersed in her sea
of pain, not drowning, emerging for a day or so
to feel the sun and then again
pulled back under. Look
how white the cliffs are today how
they glow. Singing all the way.

Sarah, say the birds in their secret
language, we’re trying
to open the stars.
She is back down in her boiling
and does not hear.
I’m putting a knot in the universe
so I won’t lose my place
when I die.

Kyla Houbolt is a poet and gardener currently living in the Sierra Nevada Foothills. Her chapbook Tuned is available from CCCP Chapbooks. But Then I Thought is forthcoming later this year from Above/Ground Press. Surviving Death is forthcoming from Broken Spine, along with a re-release of her first chapbook, Dawn’s Fool, both expected in November. She is on Twitter @luaz_poet, and many individual pieces published digitally can be found on her Linktree.