Poor Company

You are the saint

of enclosure and,

in the blue balloon

of a summer sky,

you are shadow,

a house to lock

dark in, a cave

to imprison the last

surviving ice.

Your cathedral

is exhalation,

your altar

the piled prose

of ownership,

and each idea

you’ve claimed

wallows in loss.

Night won’t

relieve you,

nor will dawn.

Birds swerve

to miss your eyes,

their songs bent

by departing winds

to find heaven

elsewhere.