Poem: "The Bonecage"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This poem came out of the February 2, 2010 Poetry Fishbowl.  It was inspired by a prompt from ladyqkat and sponsored by xjenavivex.  The villanelle form is one of my favorites.  This poem is for all the folks living in a body with aggravating limitations.

The Bonecage
-- a villanelle

I dream to slip the cage I can't disown:
The prison of my body holds me close,
A jail with walls of flesh and bars of bone.

The tyrant of my time is overthrown
And mutters in its bedclothes, comatose.
I dream to slip the cage I can't disown.

My life enfolds a soul that's overgrown
With keratin and nerve and adipose
A jail with walls of flesh and bars of bone.

Yet still I fly by night; my wings intone
A song of skies flung wide and grandiose. 
I dream to slip the cage I can't disown.

My days are bound by obligations grown
Of loves and hates that make me bellicose,
A jail with walls of flesh and bars of bone.

Still, every night the chains of day are thrown
Beneath me as I rise, refreshed, jocose.
I dream, and slip the cage that is my own:
No jail can hold me with mere flesh and bone.