Anatomy of a Paper Crane
There are trees
full of paper
cranes, dangling
where cranes
shouldn’t be
but they’d melt
into pulp
if they stood
on one foot
in the water
& they don’t
have legs and the tail
feathers twist up, not
down like the flesh
and feathered crane
reflected on the
water
& no one said
that origami should
be anatomically
correct;
the creases
should be precise,
wishes pressed flat
with a fingernail
or
the whole thing
comes out
lop-
sided.
A crane
not meant to look
like a crane rests
in the folds of delicate
paper & the colours
don’t matter and the size
doesn’t matter, but the paper
mustn't be too thick
or it will clump
them up in chunks of
too much pulp
and now the crane
is heavy and its wings
are lop-
sided and how
can it fly with your wish
wherever it goes⎼to some paper
pond with paper frogs
on paper lilies, still
Waiting still for a fly, in the home
of paper prayers
with paper
flags that hang from blossomed
trees with scripts running
down
thick wings make
for grounded birds
like ostriches or kiwis, not
the kind to wish upon
to carry a dream
to the prayer pond
flightless birds
are a matter of too
thick heavy paper
and bad creases
Maggie Edwards teaches English in rural South Korea. Her work has appeared in the Antigonish Review.