City Bird
Jasmeen Siddiqui
My attention is pulled downward at the shivering grasp of a cigarette that is firmly holding your eyes, so I raise it to my lips to bring your eyes to life. With your mind elsewhere, you miss that. There are so many doors in a city like this and you happened to open this one and now my mind tumbles into the curious wonder of small kisses on the train of my spine. Clenching fists at your deaf ears, these clenched fists squeeze out a veiled thought; anything will move like birds, separate but loyal to you. In the glaze of your eyes I can see that glossy photograph, my fingers twitch with the memory of how well they fit on your shoulder. Saying goodbye, you spin me around and I remember again how to laugh, and I remember the inside of a cage. This is what I am, and so this is what we’ll have to be, faraway eyes, or cracked knuckles allowing memories to fill our joints, my coos falling silent in the smoke, soaring like blind birds over a dark grey city hopelessly migrating to smoggy street corners, then away.