Poem: Making the Birds

Lines on Leonora Carrington’s magical birds. Those creatures of Tarot and Alchemy; conceived amongst pages, they germinate on palette….

The alphabet

Between her fingers

Each letter one feather

She lays

Onto the skeleton.

A paper frame

Its fine wires

Twisted into sentences,

Leonora's cage

An egg, her womb.

Under the magnifier

She watches

The birds fly out

From her forceps.

She watches words grow.