Wickerbird is music heard from the other room. Your ears press against the cold wall. You strain to hear, to understand, to love. The words are echoed and muddled. Your nails scratch against the cement.
You imagine people huddled, fingers dirty, harmonising. The alders breathing, keeping, weeping as they twist and writhe against the walls, catkins slumping on the floor they fall to from high above the melodies. The leaves swirl around the dirty hair, the cracked lips singing. You can see their faces.
The leaves stop mid-air, you can see it. They are motionless. The music stops. You can’t hear it. The leaves fall, loftily. They fall around nothing. No dirty hair and fingers, no cracked lips, nobody. You’re still in the other room. There is nothing to press your ears to.