Flight Poem by Jeanne Murray Walker

The angel speeding down the runway pulls up
her wing flaps, and, wouldn't you know it, wobbles,
then dribbles to a stop. She stands on the windy
tarmac, embarrassed, brushing her blond hair
from her eyes, trying to remember how to elevate
herself, wishing she'd worn jeans instead of
the girly skirt that works for flying. It's gravity's old
malice, showing up in the strangest places,
for instance at the corner where the fortune cookie truck
forgets how to turn, tipping gracefully, sliding on
its side as cookies spill into the summer night.
Around the city good luck stalls, turning us into


bodies, just protoplasm for a wasp to sing.
Even love is a sad mechanical business then,
and prayer an accumulation of words I would kill
to believe in. There's no happy end to a poem
that lacks faith, no way to get out. I could
mention that doubt- no doubt- is a testing. Meanwhile
our angel glances toward the higher power,
wondering how much help she'll get, not a manual,
for sure, but a pause in entropy perhaps, until she
can get her wings scissoring. Call it cooperation,
how a rise can build, sustain itself, and lift her
past the tree line. Then she knows she won't
fall, oh holy night, can't fall. Anything but.