Wingspan—

What seems a window, an opening to rain,
allows the world to look in—and I,
a naked visitor, huddle
windswept in the bright august light,
ask for a tablecloth, a froth of lace to cover
an inch of pale belly, a bashful crease of thigh.
In hiding
 I have forgotten
to glimpse the mercy of the sky,
 or the way
 the gentleness of clouds move
to the shape of a gown, a shawl.
And the birds themselves—
How they hover on the slightest breeze
and do not fear
the murmured lattice of their own wings
or the feathered wonder of their skin.

-- Lisa McIvor