Necessary Departure

In the lens of this longing reach, the soft give of fabric draping over a mother’s head, breast, shoulders––squeezes the chest-bird home like, yes, you will again––someday, even if. Ever.

And the light kiss into bowed bodies in sea, these water-slick skins, fog bedding of hilltops, as if to cushion the fall.

There was––there it was, had been.

You will be––the chest bird strains against its skeleton, not to be kept from that acacia on the hill, blue green in the sunset that is too bright already to be anything you know, and how do you explain this except that it must be all.

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Inspired by the photography of Ismali Folaranmi Odetola, whose “Necessary Departure” I recently encountered in an airport.

Author: Stacey C. Johnson

I keep watch and listen, mostly in dark places. View all posts by Stacey C. Johnson