The Plucking Shed

As we pluck, the air fills with a flour
of feather and dust: everyone sneezes.
The floor is pillowed in down and quill; our footsteps smother in folds of snow.
The plucking goes on and what you are
beneath your plumage reveals itself:
enormous prickly pears,
feather-pores like craters in your skin.
On the floor your other selves, the white
plumed creatures that we knew as geese,
grow light and tall: each time the door is opened
soundless skeins of ghosts rise up and thread
their way into the blanket of the night.

Gill McEvoy

If you've any comments on this poem, Gill McEvoy would be pleased to hear from you.