“Burst Idyll” by Amanda Hope

Dandelion seeds
cruise outward
over air

little ships
on which we now
separately travel

upward &
eventually into earth

Flight is not a gift
we are allowed
to keep

Something lifts me
heaving
from the dirt

something like
instinct
                  something
like longing
                            something
like a search for
someone lost to me

I check my extremities
for fingers or webbed
toes    wings or fins

Clumsy
I invent new gaits
for my fewer limbs

—–

Amanda Hope lives in eastern Massachusetts with her cats. A graduate of Colgate University and Simmons College, she works as a librarian. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in publications including TIMBER, honey & lime, Barrow Street, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, and Compose, where she was nominated for Best of the Net. She enjoys riding the subway, playing in brass bands, and wearing magnificent boots. You can find her on Twitter @AmandaHopePoet.