Origami
She takes a sheet of white paper
And breaks it in a knife-sharp fold.
The edge could draw blood.
She takes an edge, cracking
The ribs of paper. If paper
Could cry out, it would shriek
Like a bird, a crane
Penetrated by a hunter’s arrow.
She takes a crane and breaks
Its wing. White is the color
Fear leaves behind when it
Passes through bone.
She takes a bone from a hunter
And folds it till she has a knife.
She takes a sheet stained with blood
And balances it on the edge
Of a bird, a wing.
George Franklin practices law in Miami, teaches poetry workshops in Florida state prisons, subs for yoga classes when no one else is available, and drinks way too much coffee. His poems have been recently published in B O D Y, Salamander, Gulf Stream, Rumble Fish Quarterly, and The Wild Word, and his work has been translated into Spanish. New work is forthcoming in The Threepenny Review, Cagibi, and Armarolla, and a bilingual collection is in the works at Katakana Editores.
