Fly Away Home

I wish I could be a bird--

no clothes to wash or iron,

my vehicle a fast flap

or a slow updraft.

I could grab fresh spawning sushi

in frightful talons, jam slippery

mouse livers into my gullet,

no cooking, no waste.

In winter, no frost or sooty chimney--

I'd fly my own airline

to watery lands where octopus

stow away, limp in warm salt.

I'd roost above campfires,

startle hikers with my passing shadow,

strum the winds with winged fringe,

a marionette of the spirits.

My music, the migrating geese,

long silences, and the pulse of surf.

Note: today's prompt was to choose 12 words from a list of about 24 (I used flap, winter, strum, octopus, marionette, jam, limp, campfire, startle, chimney, talon and fringe), include something that tastes terrible (liver), include something from a previous poem that didn't pan out (long silences and the pulse of surf), and include a sound that makes me happy (music, geese, silence and surf--okay, so I used 4!).