Self-Portrait of a Retired Spectacle

I open my ribs slowly like how a body moves in water
or when I try to run in dreams.

I do not scream.
This is what unsettles them first.

No pulsing arterial spurts
dark, slick thing crawling from my chest
  hunger, violence,

only a bird—stunted, yellow, panting,
pressed close to the wet glow of my lungs.

Someone in the crowd shudders.
Someone else swallows hard.

Their faces are unreadable out beyond the spotlight,
but I can feel them, tracheas on the anvils,
  shifting in their seats,
quieting their hands.

The bird tilts its head,
a slow, careful movement
like it is listening.

Someone stands,
staggers,

does not leave.

Someone coughs into their fist.

takes a short, sharp breath.

Another

Then nothing.

Whispers, Wait, maybe there’s more


That’s it?

Then shouts, Close it back up!

The wind slips in cold
like peeling-off-wet-clothes
against the tar-stained, 
throbbing,
respiratory tissue.

Make it bleed!

At least give us something worth looking at

Baby, I thought you said this was a—

The bird stirs,
tilts its head again,
opens its beak,

but no sound comes,
and that is the worst thing of all.

No scream.
curse.
monstrous howl

Only the quick-whisper rhythm of its breath,
its too-light body settling deeper
into the hollow of my chest.

They wanted something with teeth,
but it is only a bird,
and they do not know what to do with that.