Apostasy

On Sundays, they appeared
like a recurring dream of flight.
They landed just as church
was getting out. For my mother,
they were missionaries of
a rival creed. They had long hair.
They put faith in the leanings
of their bodies and the air.
She tried to warn me, but I
secretly loved the scaffolds of
their wings. After cheating death
(those were her words), their wings
were stolen canvases cut from frames
and quetzals eating from the hand.
She said that no one would be there
to bear me up the day I stepped away,
but that was not the hardest thing.
More difficult than flight itself
was learning how to brace a wing
for someone else—holding to
the wire as if it were a bow—
and then, when he asked me to,
let go.

Copyright © 2008 Carol Quinn All rights reserved
from Pleiades
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission