Tumbling to earth now the wax of these wings is melted,

the faint embrace of clouds lets me pass through like a

slippery newborn, and as such I blink and blink as though

betwixt the heights I achieved and the hard fact of gravity

I might yet devise a way to do something other than fall.

For all the hubris of taking the sky, I did, by God, fly,

and the heat just before the feathers loosed was lovely,

a deep shuddering pleasure that I would seek again if

only I could bounce without breaking.

©Dana Hughes 8.30.17