the loose tooth of youth
is hanging low by its root now;
our mother birds cry at night
knowing that soon we’ll be
leaving the nests we called home
for so many years and
her wings will no longer wipe away
the tears of her baby birds
as they plummet down from the foliage
above.
we’ll fly high above states
and admire the way in which,
as we look down,
the terrain far below mimics the lines
of the maps which
held our undying attention
by the throat
for the entirety of our adolescence.