Closer than what I remember as the edge
of the earth with a sail cast out on string,
wavering in the wind, barely blowing
my father teaches me to fly.
I’m beneath a gnarled contortionist, shade
sporadic, sunburnt holes in leaf cover,
chain-link backstop all that’s left of childhood
on this old diamond where I grew wanting
to learn to fly with the alloyed birds
leaving Love Field. To leave I had to let
go and watch my sail sail over the forest
trim into memory, cry my father
next to me. The trees, the kite, the empty
spool, strung out of my hands. Sun has melted
all the way through. I am becoming less
in this crabgrass field of trinkets.
My kite’s tail shivers up the canopy.
The tree line distant and still
