Get a running start.  Catch

a good wind, he said: Be a good   

bird. I thought him German

as his hand did the wave––tumult

of syllables, the ocean. A gust carried us

from the top of a ridge to where land

helixes hug vague bodies

of water, pebbled pastures

skimming treelines across the range

littered with wildflowers. Winds lilted:

It’s not your day to go, as I watched

clouds blush vermillion, flying

in tandem as a crow does over

reservoirs and glacial gorges. That high

up, I thought maybe we could fall

in love, full of pomp and spectacle,

but he was a stranger, and to him, I was

strange; possibly ugly. Everyone

peddles timing––the random alchemy

of abutting molecules––though

I’ve grown weary of waiting. Stillness

is the danger. So I spread out

my arms, carved ciphers into ether

while a choir could be heard along

the nave where winding trails scissor

the basin. Spiraling downward,

I mouthed a new prayer, knelt in air

for deliverance, morphing into needle

of a compass, unbeholden to a place

inhospitable: the mind. The mind bent

on forgetting: I was blown wide open.