Apteria

Beauty is rarely in the birds themselves,
but in the spaces in between, where pockets

of loneliness conjugate gulps and balance -
between the breast's ventral midline, puffed

out, as if a glass ball was kept always within feel
of the body. When birds are this close,

there is the black breath of else's fragrant
wise. When they part, loneliness drops - shatters

to wing - and the parting reveals their distance
from each other, coming in aromas of terror.