Gulf Coast Flyways

Point on the map to nineteen eighty-eight
when I sat on the roof of your Thunderbird
parked aside a rice field somewhere
along the backside of Galveston Bay.
Clap your hands, you said, and my palms
wreaked havoc along that Gulf Coast flyway
as a white flurry of water birds
shot skyward against green grain
enveloped by ultramarine.
Point on the map to twenty ten
when I hovered before my computer
unhinged, sobbing over an image
of an egret, splayed and rotted
on a beach along that road
between Galveston and Biloxi.
Blue sky vainly vied for reflection
in blood-colored water.
My hands folded into silent wings
that mimicked a flight
for that bird’s soul.
Hard life happened along that highway
between nineteen eighty-eight and twenty ten.
I totaled your Thunderbird,
you totaled your integrity,
I moved to another state, twice,
you married a yoga instructor.
And then there were storms,
real storms, like Andrew, Katrina and Rita,
constant pressures that convinced me
this concrete would crack under the onslaught
unless I held that plaster together
with my own two hands.
And now, the oil.
Oh, I’ll never be an angel,
a white bird flying over rice fields
along Gulf Coast flyways.
But I can learn lessons,
and I still have my palms, and I use them
to evoke spirits to rise to great heights,
to embrace shadows of life after life,
to let go of something for a reason,
and to paint a memory that is so surreal
that even you may remember me.

–Linda Goin

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~ by Mark Folse on June 15, 2010.