It's the String, by Shirley Glubka

Self Portrait with Bird, by Dominique Fortin (Canada). Contemporary.

It's the String

"they are the soul freed from its physical incarnation"
–Dominique Fortin, on her birds


It's the string, there's always a string. 
It's a thin flimsy string, a loose homemade leash.
It hasn't been tested, but it connects.

How does the bird maintain flight
inside the blank room
while the girl holds the string? 

Did she climb the precarious ladder 
to allow as much flight as possible
in the white room?

How long can she stand in her two little shoes
on the small unsure platform?
How long since the cage was a cage?

Shirley Glubka

This poem was written in response to the surprise ekphrastic poetry challenge on birds.
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Shirley Glubka is a retired psychotherapist, the author of three poetry collections, a mixed genre collection, and two novels. The Bright Logic of Wilma Schuh (novel, Blade of Grass Press, 2017) is her latest. Shirley lives in Prospect, Maine with her spouse, Virginia Holmes. Website: http://shirleyglubka.weebly.com/ Online poetry at The Ekphrastic Review here and at 2River View here and at The Ghazal Page here and here.