to one another. Their gravel voices
are thunder breaking the sky,
a gun cracking air,
the bad air
filled with birds whose wings
tip indigo in the light.
Beneath them, men with blue guns
turn up the whites of their eyes.
The feathers,
the feathers come apart, falling
specks of dust.
My ears want to hear them
begin to speak,
to hear the dark berries
uncoil through flesh.
They are quiet,
so still
I wait for a breath
to escape the warm feathers.