I’ve seen you naked a thousand times before —
one hand on the handle of the door,
halfway out,
like you were born to run.
The memories that muscles make
the dumb flexing of a mindless few;
they never move a day in their life
but they dance to one hell of a tune.
“That’s how they teach you to fly.”
–some sly aside made me wonder why they named you Wendy
and you said your mother ran away when she was nine
“she took the red-eye on Pan-America, flight 55”
a story a touch too funny
to be true.
I thought of Harry Houdini.
The calm of always seeing an exit sign
and knowing people can’t fly.
–