My eyes pan up, up, I raise my chin
whispering to myself, imagine the wind.
I wrote a poem when I was small
about that exact space, right where the branches meet the wind.
Their tiny bodies at its mercy
this way and that way dancing dizzy in the wind.
Each hand on a branch, feet gripping the trunk
I would move up, up trying to feel my face in that wind.
I told a few friends, but what they thought
didn’t matter much to me, they couldn’t feel the wind.
I saw each hand on a rail, feet scaling the steel
listening for the next stop, or the start, of the wind.
Me, and the branches,
(would you)just imagine the wind.
The power is in the fragility, don’t you see,
it’s in the wind.
I told my dad of the wind, and the branches,
and the trestle, and the train, and the wind.
I paused for the praise daddy gives his little girl,
like she’s the most brilliant whip of the wind.
But I watched the breath get drawn out of him,
Lost out into the wind.
“do you like trains?”
I hadn’t thought about this, I’d just thought about the wind.
“people get killed by trains”
he whispered out into the wind.