The Thing With Feathers

Some birds fly forever, I've heard,
and I've wondered how.

I imagine my arms wide and the moon
full and still waters below. Only trust
in the turning of the world and glide and it
seems a simple thing.

But dawn brings ships and their flocks and
a war in the air. I hear terrible songs and
turn my eyes from the rising sun and beat against
the burning light seeking quiet
in the high reaches of the sky
where stars become possible.

I seek empty paths over ice where the living
are silent and the way is clear, but a chill sinks into my
bones and I am too heavy for the air.

Ancient winds show me other lands, but I am
wingproud and desire my own destinations. There
will be time for every strange country when I am
done with dragons.

But what of the storms?
They come against my wings and are
deaf to weariness or confusion.
The world turns like a rage and I cannot rise above, nor
find the cold peace of quiet lands.

Let me rest a moment, then. Forever is
too long.

------Mark Kreighbaum

This Isn't a Story

I'm sorry, Katherine,
but dying isn't a story.
I saw your careful outline,
your well-researched notes:
first the heroine died,
then her adventures began.
You knew every detail:
the ghost town by the river,
when the trains ran,
the reasons why bullets were
better than pills.
You wrote and rewrote
the opening scenes. Nothing more.
Because dying isn't a story.

We argued about story. We argued
when you stopped writing.
No, edit that. I argued. You said
you'd keep your notes and walked away.
You understood pacing and tension.
You mailed your goodbyes as you drove out of town;
walked down to the river, leaned back, looked up at the sky—

But no. Dying isn't a story.
The hikers who found you,
that was a story. The police officer
with the half-finished novel;
the county parks manager in cutoff jeans
who told us he was sorry,
who told us he'd done this before.
A story is a long drive home through the dark,
both my hands steady on the wheel.

Your empty apartment was a story,
at least once we opened the door:
The answering machine blinking its silence,
the solstice cards lining the hall.
The borrowed books set on the counter,
labeled with sticky notes, bearing our names.
Nothing left to the reader:
no loose ends, no unresolved threads.
But a story is messier than a body by a river,
a bullet to the head. A story is
your mother packing your dishes
and your silver and a fifth of Scotch,
filling out the paperwork
to transport your gun across state lines.

You had a promising start:
the opening lines, the rising tension,
the chilling sense of things
that couldn't happen any other way.
But those things aren't a story,
and dying doesn't make them one.

You knew how to outline
and you knew how to plot.
So how could you not know
what all writers know,
I still don't know.
I'm sorry, Katherine.
This poem isn't a story,
but I'm not driving away.