Bird
Appear as hovercraft,
Smoke and mirrors
Vanishing into air, but feel
Yourself as gristle
And keratin, sinew, barb,
And bone. To rise takes
All the power you
Can muster, more work than
Running yourself into
Heart and breath, more even
Than sleep. A body can’t rest
On the invisible, must
Twist and shift, muscle
Draft and current, wind strafing
The eyes. However you make it
Look effortless, do not
Deceive yourself flight will
Set you free. Want it
Anyway, wind above
And beneath you, lifting hard.
Zeppelin
Unwieldy-hearted, browsing the blue, I never
Imagine looming. Draw my shadow
Self behind, cast down, a figure
Dimming waves, fields, the shining
Pinnacled cities. Send people
Netherward, from up here too tiny to be
Thought of, heads upturning
When the windows tremble. What a
Distance to travel, pulse and froth
Rumbling the air, chewing, bearing smaller
Spheres, like anyone armed to tumble forth
Into gravity. So relieved, my gondola
Lofts beneath its gassy envelope, my breath
Held. A spark will set me off.
Zzzz
She doesn’t want to harm me, so
She hums. She prefers living alone,
Needing a single twig, just one
Hole. Like me she likes browsing
The desert where a breeze wafts
Her dry, where she dozes
On sand and ephemerals
Astonish by the thousands,
Brilliant and willing when the brief
Rains wake them. Out here, a female
Can do it all on her own
Time, and will, and goes on
Choosing, sounding herself entire,
One bare horizon to another.
Read three poems by Katharine Coles previously appearing in Terrain.org.
Header photo by Wang LiQiang, courtesy Shutterstock.