You’ve heard, if not seen me, flying

as the light fades in all the places

they gathered flowers to make me:

pineapple broom from the heath;

creamy umbels of meadowsweet;

pale green blooms of the oak.

 They gave me as wife to a man

cursed not to marry a woman of flesh.

His fingers touched me like frost.

I fell for a lover fierce as a bee

seeking me out for what I was:

lips, labia, oozing honey nectar.

We killed my husband together.

No one taught me it was wrong.

I was never suckled at a breast.

I never had baby teeth

to bite at a gold cross

that hung from a mother’s neck.

I was turned into a bird: noiseless flier

hunting mice, shrews, sparrows…

tu-wu-wu-wu-wu… tu-wu-wu-wu-wu…

They know I’m somewhere but not where. 

I catch the slightest rustle,

a loud heartbeat.

You find the remains of my meals:

parcels of bones, feathers, carapaces.

Sometimes, I lunge at your lighted

windows: printing the glass

with breast, talons, outstretched wings,

flower face of a desperate girl.

~ Vicki Feaver, The Book of Blood.