Girl Without Wings
She runs along the side of the road,
Her arms outstretched, fingers fluttering,
And she knows that she can fly.
What is holding her back is not gravity,
Which can’t be all that great; she remembers watching,
With her family, as a man leapt across the moon.
It can’t be fear, either, because she dreams
Of swooping down to trail her fingers in the lake,
And when she wakes up, she is happy.
It must be, after all, the length of her legs,
Flashing white between wool socks and wool skirt,
Too short to lift her into the currents of air,
To propel her fast enough into the wind to rise.
But she promises herself that it’s okay, really,
Because one day, very soon, you’ll look up and she’ll be gone.
