Anatomy of Failure

Shadows passed over the statues in the night —
crossed them, hesitated, vanished;
even the dust was white as a bird.

Someone had loved me, had
stopped loving me. I had
failed in a minute but final way;

all the words exchanged
risen past the boundaries
of what had been made

and what wasn't yet outlined, risen
like a parrot toward a sky
only to find a painted ceiling and a stenciled sun.

I lived in a museum, slept
up against a body of stone,
spine to block-grey base

as a stranger's face looked
down upon me,
a bird in someone else's mind.

Meghan O'Rourke
The New Republic
February 27, 2006

Copyright © 2005 by The New Republic, LLC
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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