by Tom Healy
The world folded
and I let go.
Cuffed, shoved and
kicked down,
my single-engine Cessna
dropped through
black-boot
clouds and rain.
Though I was
mugged and tumbled,
it’s actually difficult
for a small plane
not to fly.
The propeller lashed
the air and the plane
jumped
through the window
of late afternoon,
leveling off
a couple thousand feet
above the earth’s belly,
its easy rise and fall
against a ribcage
of trees and road.
There was a slow lift
from the body
below me breathing—
the world unfolded
and I let go.
—from What the Right Hand Knows
