New poem, needs work, needs love

I have risen to my own challenge. I used the word mercurial from the read. write. poem. random word generator. I used my pet peeve--mean people. I put them together in a poem.

I am going to talk a little bit about the process, about how difficult it was to sit down and think yesterday with my kids both home, and how I really wanted to write, over at Fertile Ground. Then I'm going to offer up this poem as the first to be critiqued and workshopped in our private critique area. If you would like to join us and have a poem critiqued in a thoughtful, critical, meaningful forum, email us: art AT polkadotwitch DOT com

The Wife Stands Alone

Joy, stitched in gossamer on the back of bird’s wing,
a mercurial message flying past.
In the awkward “V” of geese
relocating, another note,
an abstract memo like a flock of clouds.
Kiss.
a tensile word, gentle, sweet.
A cleft barb on the tip
of a gleaming fish hook
when kiss comes gliding
out of your mouth, life mate.
You were raised on the sewage of sarcasm,
sucked at the breast of backward
compliments. Rare in your nest
the feathered blessing,
the gift of an ear, an arm.
You call to our hatchlings
in the only voice you know
a shrill, tense cackle
meant only for crows or shrieking bats.
Even bat babies hang more securely
than the fate of our children.