The Poem-Line

I hung some poems on the line;

They needed air,

We cannot quite remember Spring,

They thought.

There must be something

Better than television.

I caught my poems

Sneaking out the window and said,

“All you had to do was ask.”

I strung them one by one

Against the blue and

They went flapping, flapping—

Making clatter calls to birds on the sill;

Suddenly it seemed so cruel.

I realized they were not linen.

They were not even mine at all but

 Feathers over fleshy beating hearts.

So I unpinned them.

They went flying off— up, up, up!

And have not yet come down.