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126 JODY RAMBO ON THE DESIRE FOR WINGS after May Swenson Early on she felt the constant sensation of moving toward the bluing trees. A material force. And where the flesh is thin, she felt a little shock of wind at the underside of her arms. She floated, some would say, into rooms, with an airy indirectness, and exited, with the urgency of a trapped bird. Mirrors, she found troubling. Even in windows there appeared the silhouette of something she may have once loved. A hovering absence. She had always felt like a bird blown through the world. She never felt like a tree. The things she wanted reflected this. Her bones to drift on a slight wind, to mend midair, to perch above things, always paired with the high jinks of ascent. In truth, it was shy of her, to want to be cared for this way, to want, as she did, to be swaddled in wind. To desire clouds for good company, a home in an atmosphere of old stars. These were not things one could ask for. To rest in a perch of pure air. Build a nest made of light and twigs, of material found & gathered. At night, she’d lie awake to hear the lapsing of wind currents—wing hum & shiver—look to the fluttering motion of her hands made strange by the falling light—the whole circular show. How difficult to love the sky at this distance. Only the movement of shadows of clouds seemed a kind of nearness. Sometimes stirring her finger in a basin of water might set her swaying. Yet even this was pricked with longing. A longing, pitched high above grasses. And always this song in the throat, tuned to the trembling of young trees. Their branches swept wayward. It could be lonely. The way her skin and hair were things. Sleep was all that was left. To rest, small and fallen silent, set against the sky full of the motion of birds. She held close the rhythm of wings beating, as if it were the key. The wing itself. The shape she most loved. Flame-like. A fin. Petal of a flower. There were blueprints for this. The touch was almost something else entirely. 127 JODY RAMBO FIELD It was not enough to cover it with grass and leaves near but beyond the rotting tree that stood alone in the field. She must be cured of it by a cure of the ground, a cure beyond forgetfulness. Of neither love nor hate. Plain as dust. Stirred by stick into air—a dry salve for the mending. And she lay still in the field’s light with its thousand mirrors as if her body were not always with her, but native to the sound of an earthly sorrow issuing from the grass. From this came the desire to sleep under every tree and the memorization of branches blued to the tint of skin. And the sad smell of lilacs—she remembered it again— its power over her, until she was something belonging to it. Now there would be work to be done in the seeing. Something ordinary about to happen in the branches—perhaps a bird flown back to its place of just being there. High up and small. Her eye—plainest of things—taking in its hush of fire. ...

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