Nine Lives of Attempted Flight II

I am not made of manure, and I cannot grow in this place. Roots, today, seem like a disgrace to the ground they burry themselves in. I’d rather be the milkweed seeds.

Standing in the spaces between cornrows, the sky it’s usual pre-winter gray, she sees old midwestern weeds bumble across the recently shorn stocks. Her bladder and bowels full, but her mind unready to return home thinks away the pressures and buys her walk a few more minutes outside. Alfresco, this could be considered the largest room to be contained in. Old telephone-pole trees stand as walls, blocking harvest devastating gusts. Here and there she spots an occasional hole, little rodent dwellings. If she were a mouse, this may be the best place to live, but then, reconsiders: the unforgiving tractors and violent upheaval of food source and coverage. Her stomach mourns the mice. She sees a dead crow, and her mind blames the farmer, without question. Her poorly covered feet move delicately over and across, her long skirt catching here and there, and her hands outstretched from her body, keeping balance and hovering above her waist. She exits the falsely protected corn field, now where last summer’s grasses were allowed to grow and die untouched. The wind, it pushes against her chest, an aggressive force grabbing her by the collar and lifting her of the ground, yet forcing her back. The skirt inflates, her legs acting like a kite frame. Her body moves from the earth in a grand arch, and as she looks down past her toes she wonders at what speed and angle she must regain gravity in order to not crash back onto earth.

Nine Lives of Attempted Flight: 1

The river, dirty and full of urban run off, passes through city mostly ignored. The same color as morning cappuccinos, tinted by silt, rat carcass, car exhaust, starling shit, and Vatican dust, the Tiber flows south eventually rapping around an ancient ait associated with healing. Right before this island, (which is shaped like a ship, housing the same hospital since 1584, and goes by the name "Fatebenefratelli") there is a small cascade, a man-made crest that the water arches across. The smooth fall creates an undertow, and all things that float get trapped there. She stands watching that water. Every bottle with cap still in place, each lonely football, and pieces of wind-swept Styrofoam bob in the sunlight, churning, almost escaping towards the island, but eventually being pulled back. There was one out of place tree today, bare-barked and leafless, rotating like a cumbersome crocodile in the current. The branches of the tree kick blue water bottles away. She get’s hopeful, thinking maybe one will eventually break free. Her heart falls a little as the garbage buoy drifts back. No one else in the city seems to notice the water. People do nothing else but cross the bridge. What would it feel like to fly today? She stood on the white marble ledge; a breeze brought smells from the see and blew her hair into her eyes. None of the scooters or mini cars driving by knew who she was; even fewer people noticed the new, brightly colored and fleshy sculpture in place. She leapt. She expected that she would never reach the water. Even if she were wrong, at least she’d be caught in the whirling.