By: Nate Elias

I’ve eaten from the nest,
buried bones enough to pick
my pale heart’s flesh from the ocean’s
coral teeth. What crow corpse weeps

without marring a lover in its wings?
A harbor night, turbulent foam beneath
our broken tree, we plumed
each other’s feathers clean.

In the mirror of the hungry sea
I fell and you reached, your talons
unable to defy gravity

or save this winged creature
who unlearned to fly.