Holli Carrell

Flight


Snow hardened over me.
It fell as I fell. 

Quiet, 
quiet morning 

star shot 
from a loud heaven.

My fists unclasped
from clouds,

a girl slipping,
her arms out,

sinking back. 
Silent

as fertility, I fell. 

To drop
from such a height 

does not feel
like dropping at all. 

Rising 
is what it’s like. 

For years 
and years, I fell

and earth below
me swelled,

a blurred puddle. 

Then I landed
like a smudge

of ink on a sheet 
of blank paper. 


A deer turned;
I saw a child 

tug his red sled away.
I made my mark:

just a fog 
of breath,

body print 
exposed in snow.

I paid no notice

to the wrecked wing, 
bone out, bruise,

white mold 
of another 

life matted to my hair. 

I heard my voice,
A speaker in another

room,
and so I left

my dress, my pathetic
little halo

there in the snow, 
and naked, 

I ran,
naked, I 

moved through.

Holli Carrell is a Pushcart-nominated writer currently writing and teaching in Cincinnati, where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in creative writing at the University of Cincinnati. Her writing has appeared in 32 Poems, Salt Hill, Bennington Review, Quarterly West, Blackbird, Poetry Northwest, Tupelo Quarterly, and other places.