Gliding in Merced

When I allow remembering to spill beyond my will,
& press against the open hinge of memory’s door,
I think of how the face I held was changed;
vanished by a simple split of wind.
Landing on a distant hill you were alive
& dying, broken then and lying still;

paler than a wounded hand swathed in sifted ash
resting on a window sill. You had a habit in the past
of throwing back a final glance, as though your faith
was wearing thin inside your cockpit nest &
staying high was just another test, like landing
on one wheel or the promise of a kiss goodbye.

At noon you tried your very best and swore
the blast of followed air would hold you in
the folded sleeve that god rolls up to keep you there,
and wore the creases of a smile around your trusted
path as though the patch of land you fled
had lost the magic left to capture you.

On the eve of your ascent, we slept
in fields of swooning wheat and laughed
at crowds you held enrapt by your contempt for gravity.
You threw your life behind the words
of someone’s stranded prayers and like a bird
with broken wings the air let go of you.

Caught in the heat of a stalled afternoon
you lost your bet & met your sky-high affair
with death at last, then drifting in the crossing
winds of silent despair, dropped in a spiraled
descent of featherless bones & nameless parts,
down & down onto a golden plume of dust.