Winged Purposes (A Poem by Dean Young)

Fly from me does all I would have stay
The blossoms did not stay, stayed not the frost in the yellow grass
Every leash snapped, every contract void
And flying in the crows lingers but a moment
In the graveyard oaks, yet inside me it never stops
So I can't tell who is chasing, who chased
I can sleep into afternoon, and still wake soaring

So out come the bats, down spiral Swifts into the chimneys
Hey, I'm real
Say the dream-figments then are gone
Like breath-prints on a window
Handwriting in snow
Whatever I hold however flies apart
The children skip into the park
Come out middle-aged with children of their own

Your laugh over the phone
Will it ever answer me again
Too much flying
Photons perforating us
Voices hurtling into outer space
Whitman out past Neptune
Dickinson retreating, yet getting brighter

Remember running barefoot across hot sand
Into the sea's hovering
Remember my hand
As we darted against
The holiday Broadway throng
Catching your train
Just as it was leaving

Hey, it's real
Your face like a comet
Horses coming from the field
For morning oats
Insects hitting a screen
The message nearly impossible to read
Obscured by light
Because carried by Mercury
I love you, I'm coming

Sure, what fluttered is now gone
Maybe a smudge left
Maybe a delicate under-feather
Only then that too, yes, rained away

And when the flying is flown
And the heart's a useless sliver in a glacier
And the gown hangs still as meat in a locker
And eyesight is dashed-down glass
And the mouth rust-stoppered
Will some twinge still pass between us
Still some fledgling pledge