to fly was all he wanted––to sail the boat unfurl the wings, kissing wind; fast and faster across the land of the sometimes sure, sure enough
to fly again, he demanded––to where was insignificant––to hurl headfirst toward some invisible purpose, hard and harder across the land of the dream
i listened, how some record the songs of birds at the brink before they go, taking notes, noting what it took to know how he would stay flying fast and lost in the land of the dream from which i decided to go
quickly but soft, & likely unnoticed until one day when he wakes with a sense that something
happened, how it seemed real like a song
so real (he could almost hear it now!) or (maybe then!) or at the time of some other when, when he one day once upon a time got around to listening to what was somewhere (wasn’t it?) close enough he could almost sing it, there from the tip of his tongue
and later means to name what is leaving, to trace somehow its contours, but what is gone is good and gone and has no edge but what returns to the initial wish––
fly