Groundless as she treads

She Had Wings
For Thomasina

It begins with a small itch that spreads
across the blades, distends to a dull ache,
in time becomes a sharp wound of longing
for something she cannot yet guess at.

There may have been structures beneath
that afforded some form of implausibility,
a tether of lift, a nail of ascension, a manner
of leaving that remains deep in the ruin of
excavated tissue, but she can’t be certain.



She dreams sometimes and it all comes back,
the reeling careers, the banking careens of a life
in sky. This is home and the mists that pass far
below in coverlets and forests that cushion her
rise through slumber caress each care at the end
of days in suffercloud, temper the feathered ethers
of giddy sun that glaze the broad arc as she hurls
herself against harsh blue, again and again.

So the empty persists and swells beyond where
such things might have fit. She turns to walk and
somewhere, in the sole of her gait, a leaving that
leaves her groundless as she treads heavy the earth.

Joseph Gallo
October 14, 2007