Things that Fly

The young girl fell from her nest
in the crotch of a Douglas fir atop
the highest ridge on Carter's Knob

on a morning when the sun was down
and the smoke moved like a snake
through the treetops below her
and the Tuckasegee curled like
a ribbon, the rapids glistening white
in the distance, storm clouds hanging

ominously over her, when her father 
was long dead, her mother off hunting 
and her own first true love had departed,

she reached the end of the swaying branch,
spread her young wings and launched,  
because that's what young girls do.



(First published in Port Crow Press - 2024)