Robin Kinzer | poetry | The Wingspan of Desire

    
   
The Wingspan of Desire



The silver that rivers through your brown curls
looks ash blonde, as if the sun herself has stroked
your scalp. I run my fingers through these curls,
and consider how hard it is for you to let yourself

take up space. We both had fathers who ground
us down to dust and bone; who used feet and belts
to teach us lessons we neither learned, nor forgot.
My father once lifted me into the air, then punted

me like a soccer ball. Your father’s rage, much the same,
though he mostly used belts with decorative metal buckles.
Now, we both startle at shadows, both shrink from conflict.
Still, I don’t think either of us is as broken as we feel.

I think we’re both just testing the air again, aching
to remember flight. When we touch, I feel like nothing
more than a ray of incandescent light. You graze my chin,
and I am split into particles of floating gold.

Sometimes when we kiss, I trace love letters
onto the roof of your mouth, braille for the tongue.
I wonder: Do broken bones make music as they heal?
And where did you come from? Where did you come from?

I will wrap your wounds in the softest gauzes.
I will hold your palm in mine like a sapphire.
I will whisper to you in the language of flight.
One day, we will both wheel through the air again.

And on that day, the sky will be ecstatic:
A joyful whispering of wings, two blue jays
bursting free of their pain, sailing their way
into the sun’s impossibly bright light.
.