My keepers kept me.

Now they set me free.

My spirit, white, as a sunlit cloud,

Flies against the bay.

Their faces are shadowed by their gloom,

Their dark lot,

To tie me to

Some forbidden thing,

A taboo no one could tell.

The first one kept me

With a lock and chain,

And underfed, I struggled

To maintain my strength,

But I found joy,

And so I ate of unseen happiness, 

And made him guess which way that I would go, 

And made him say,

He’d cut me off, 

If he knew where I was getting it.

Until then, the second keeper came

To put me on my heels.

In constant undertow,

He fed me too much

And kept me fat,

But I got wise,

And started sharing 

My supper with the rats,

Who thanked me by gnawing a hole

Beneath the bars,

And I dug through.

And now I’m here with you,

And I wonder if you would try to keep me?

If you would,

I would say you better have a really good way.

Maybe you could trick me into staying?

Or better yet, just let me want to.

The geese fly south today,

Over the lake.

They have no intention

Of casting a reflection,

And glassy surface of the still water

Has no intention of keeping it.

-jenn