corners justwrite.

In the corner where I keep my handfuls of sand, tell myself I'll count them some day but am never really sure how to separate them from each other again, like birds falling from the sky or rising from the ground, meeting in the middle so you can't tell which is who and what this photograph is trying to tell you unless you look very closely, with a magnifying glass or a microscope, at the direction their feathers are pointed, pluck them away one by two by three, but that's all because the only thing you can do with so many feathers is to build more birds, but the originals were better anyway, not so out of tune or on the hour, just enough to remind yourself that imperfection is natural and it all works out in the end, or else it works itself into canopies of light, trying to catch the marsh air, unsure of where it begins, and ending up chasing shadows around the room, looking stupid in front of the video camera and laughing about it but only half the time. I unscrew the lid to your bottle of dreams, and you snatch it away from me again, not knowing that I was concerned it might be too tight, that I have my own to worry about, or not worry at all when I'm sure it's in a cardboard box full of feathers in a chest full of sand, no room to move, just to bend because the whole world is so soft sometimes that I'm not quite sure where I've been or where I'm going, and I figure it doesn't matter much as long as I've got my wings, got my cranberries and my bottle of dreams or something just as useful, and I'll forget about the corners sometimes.