Blackbirds

Words weep from my fingertips,
stained black from all the thoughts
splashing from my gaping lips
and to my hands, where they've been caught

and sculpted into blackbirds,
singing sweetly in my ear
until they've filled my head with feathers
and their songs are all I hear.

I perch upon my whipping pen
within a storm of whispering wings,
let them wind me up and down again
in their lofty, lulling rings.

I spread my arms in rapture
and for moments, I can fly
like all the birds who swarm beneath me,
tossing me into the sky,

where I fall into a theater
of the words I once let go,
gone silent in the face of thoughts
that only blackbirds know.