phoenix | a poem

Phoenixlike you rose again
while my feet still burned 
under white-hot coals
and pain charred my vision

when I had finished burning 
you were nowhere, and I was
not as magnificent as you were
not as bold nor sure of foot or feather

I choked on the ashes of my pyre
Seething – how undeserving you were of resplendence –
so full-force hell-bent on fury and spleen

that I did not notice my wings grow

and when I should have taken flight
I remained blanketed in the embers I kept alight
and scolded them for singeing my plumage