even a feather in flight
can sketch your young form,
or the sunbeam
playing hide-and-seek among
the trees along
the ditch, rebounding
from house roofs and from
a child's mirror
the crude bridge there, where
you crossed every day to
go to school or to your friend's
house nearby...
down the banks, tip-toe
over, up the other side through
the cottonwood trees
the hot, summer night
you sneaked out at the sound
of Dad's snore, stole
away to the bridge,
the footsteps you heard...
always this bitter exhaustion
of sinking only
to rise the same,
from centuries,
from seconds, of nightmares
that can't recover
the light of your eyes
in the moonlight
there by the water,
the long wail of grief,
of sheer terror,
when a shot rang out,
a bird's wings shattered
and feathers flew
like you
toward home
--Jo VonBargen 2012
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