The Unknown History of the Flying Fish

 

 

Quick as the leap from water— it arises

again longing in all its umbrage, its yolk

touch and fickle memory of love. Fingers

 

running through the boy’s soft curls

in his sleep, that instant birth of the second

skin. Memory of when he turned his cheek

and head and palm—of the winds, when

 

they changed, the compass rolling over

on its side. The skin growing thicker,

ravenous over the flesh, the scales, each

 

notch tacked into the bedpost. Memory

of that last kiss settled low in the gut, perilous

as fog harboring the ominous quiet of a hunting

 

party. Hands losing grasp in their shift

into fins, into something between wings and fins,

losing grasp. The crude awakening underwater,

 

between wings and fins. Constant prayer

immediately thereafter to shed the scales. Memory

rising up; the clouds, the wind. If only

 

to touch a feather, to be wrapped in that precious air

once more. Longing is the bridge— pulling together,

pushing apart, between wings and fins, the horizon.

 

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