I can sense the shape of the wing
that my skeletal frame would require
to sustain flight

Like the memory of a limb after having been severed

I can still feel
I can still itch
I can still clench

I have flown

So many times that
my memory of each
runs together
such that I and I
are in echelon

From the tops of these trees
the city peers back with a lazy eye
and a sprawling lack of focus

A string of lights at the border
is sequenced in series to appear to cascade
first up then down, in so many colors

It is dark and I lose myself
in the surround of the night

Heavy birds weigh down branches, honed in on
the tip of balance just before snapping,
I sneeze and startle them all away

The moment you relax deeply and securely
into the updraft, you’ll begin to ride the scree

remember – hang low in the pocket
and let the flexible tension that is arced around you
the buoyancy that is, of wind rushing the fine cilia
about you, spread under light and sky in full spanned glory,
take you ever higher to loftier aerie
to thin and rarefied air

Chagall 2014/2019