Painsong (Poetry)

Pain scythes through limbs — a cutglass bird
wings song-bladed high and ultra-thin
to a breathless state
that anticipates a climax —
a point where
all is waltzing bitter notes and air...

It circles in its soaring aimless arc
hauls me upwards — fevers me with sound
I bend and almost break
then plummet down
damp with dew into a nerveless lake.
A feather drifts — the encore drowned. Unheard.