with the first step the body is wired
to the ground, with nowhere to hide,
all the star stuff around you, too
feels the pull, tries to let go
but only the birds fly away,
and the leaves fall and fall
somehow you have managed
one brittle inch of fortune
a half-turn into an easy morning
no longer in anyone’s temporary company
no longer listening for the overflowing tub,
no longer watching the old broken clocks
you have deflated the past,
letting it fill the rooftop,
moving higher, higher
you have learned to swallow time in great gulps
your parched throat has broken away
unable to make even bird sounds
as you raise your arms and let them fall
a cautious strategy of height and silence
pretending flight each morning,
measuring your own wing span
as it unravels to fortune
a flightless sound, and you, again
stepping into the cool empty air
Fredda S. Pearlson is enjoying her third career as a cardiovascular RN. Her poetry has appeared in The California Quarterly, The Wisconsin Review, The Centennial Review, Panoply, Helicon Nine, The Feminist Renaissance, Chrysalis, Stone Country, The Little Magazine, The Dolphin’s Arc: Poems on Endangered Creatures of the Sea, Connecticut River Review, Common Ground Review, Miramar, Bryant Literary Review, Earth’s Daughters, and Pinyon.
