Detention

The birds set loose
at daybreak
cooing, pecking at the walls
invite us – in strange languages.

Awaiting a wave on its way
– peeping at a future – the past
flies from all directions.

Time – like a shrapnel – strikes,
lodges within, breathes.
The city makes its heat
festering the heartbeats.

Flowers blooming everywhere
honouring their springs,
oozing colours – bright and crisp –
from their petals, your smile
of last summers, dried
rasping on the road, breaking
on a little movement.

Each day the house opens
like a jaw
and shuts us within.