to take to the skies would have been
monumental, for in that moment we forgot
how all life must breathe:
even empty days teem with respiration.

kaleidoscopes hovered before my eyes in
the heat of sister's fury, the disbelief
she houses in every filament.

when mother taught us to soar, she said
don't land where you aren't welcome but me,
i never could read the signs right.

we broke down fifty feet from the tracks every
night and sometimes in the day.

trying to sleep i could feel the sorrow
hanging above, sultry and certain, and when
we wake again our wings will unfurl.

ready to go?