The Government of Nature

Flying

18 Flying A hand pulled me open, down on the bed, down on the bed, looking up, holding the covers while the soft soul of me, like a crab’s inedible meat, lifted away, meat with thick strings that hold together, then elongate themselves to keep me tied, bound in the body until this lifting, the soul’s ugly meat becoming wings and I flew, above the house, the graves behind it in Baltimore Cemetery with grandma’s marker holding our names. The ceiling was the law saying stop! . . . until the hand gave me the gift of flying . . . in my heart, yes, it is the heart. Night became a magnet of my craving to be one thing forming in the womb of my mother where nascent nubs of self take shape, the brain still asleep in its mysteries until the heart awakens, thumps itself into beating with a drum song we know in the endless connections of intestines and brain, mind of gut . . . mind. Sages say we can fly when God falls asleep, his arm hitting the floor we call Earth so the touched can dream of home. ...