Crane Wife

Your artistry grows wearisome
and I know you stutter and stumble over
blue eyes and ravaged, rough luminosity -
vulnerable to the hipster lips of vogue modernity
don't strain your heartstrings for apathetic boys
my straw doll, babydoll, the labor of stitching your pieces
in place after the schoolyard boys are done butchering you
my hands grow calloused

and I see you making that drug deal
trading the feathers of your muse for
absinthe and crystal dreams
you wrote the greatest American screenplay
but you sold the rights away

Speaking figuratively, metaphorically
I tell you I theoretically love you
and ask, rhetorically, do you too.

Laugh it off.
I'll find you in my path, repetitively
and I'll mend your burlap crane wings
every time.

The mystery of your silken poetics entices me,
crane wife – and I know
if I spy through the cracks in your fingers
to discover the secret of your ritual
your crane flight will leave your silks
unfinished.