The Glass Wing

heavy as a mountain

translucent as ice

broken from a great body

its feathers melting like snow

the shard of a hill

snapped from a potter’s hand

then laid in a box

on the prison island of birds

a vice of brightness

surrounded by broken windows

crowds of eyes of dust

the steel bones like fingers

opening from a clenched hand

it shimmers in the afternoon

the tremendous wing

o frozen dream of flight

o grave shoveled by the sun

for Ai Weiwei