The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Mapping the Borderlands by Barbara Sabol

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Willingly

If  the  last sound I hear  is a whir of sparrows, an  all-at-once ascent  from the apple
tree, air  pulsing  above  the branches, it would be a kind of permission. Like the luff
of a sheet flung above the  bed, again and again. That great  whoosh  of air takes  me
far  out on the water, the  sail breathing  in and out. Coastline  fading  like memory.

immense heaven
feeling the tug
of other galaxies

Light  sifts  through  the blinds tonight the way  my  mother  sifted  cake  flour  into  a
blue  porcelain bowl.  A dusting  of  twilight  now  on the  chair,  across  the  vanity. In
her  last  days  my  mother  swore  she  saw  wings  on  the  wall  of her  hospice  room.
First,  it was  a large  bird. Later,  an airplane. Look,  she  would  say,  hoisting  herself
up on her elbows, can’t you see the wings there on the wall? Not  a  shadow  of wings,
but the  wings themselves. She  was insistent. It’s just the  light  playing  tricks, Mom.
What else could I say?

But I’ll admit that sometimes I can see the moon fall across the water, even though
I  live  inland  from  the  shore.  I  hear  its  swash,  the   riffle  of  beach  pebbles.  A
commotion of gulls.

glass lake
trailing my fingers
through the clouds

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