We sheared your wings off in the kitchen like lamb’s wool;

Cauterized the quicksilver which trickled from

Your bare shoulder-blades. It was not known to me how you

Would count your way back into the sky’s dim fire. Snow

Fell in accelerating gusts outside. I examined you as if in a mirror;

You recited your dreams with a human presence. And then

The sun reddened, before shutting off.