partridge

I push on keys
in hopes of releasing
some hard spots in me
grown over and
lined with duff
but still as tough
as a new bone
torn from skin
of an adult
partridge.

who could tell you
what this all means
and why my hard spots
are in heart
instead of knees
grown over
by some sort of need
to protect
or stay protected.

but I've always been
the slim imagination
of a bird
never quite in flight
but dreaming
of a tall tree to squat in
for life.

a partridge in a bush
without a branch to leap from
without nest to nestle
without a song to sing.
just hard spots
like calcium deposits
in all the wrong banks
along all the wrong banks
of rivers that
cannot and will not yield
for a partridge.
a partridge that wanted to trade its wings
for a bit bread and a loving coo
a loving coo
three notes long
whispered for eternity.

but a bird is a bird is a bird
and so it must continue
onward, if not upward
in search of what
it does not know
but something
inside that makes a partridge
move, move, move
ever toward a new roost
a better roost
above ground
beside a river
but not so near that it'll get swept up
above ground
in a tree
in some distant place
in some foreign world too new
for a partridge to even dream.

she follows the sun.