Rebecca Ressl

Bent backwards, fingernails cascading upon the floor tiles,

shirt shuffles up – just a bit –

it’s the shirt she wore that day

with the smile that ran into laughing corners

it’s the shirt with the sleeve I touched – just for a moment –

and she keeps leaning, a balancing arch on tippy-toe fingertips,

toward some sort of finality outlined

in her shadows, like the chalk tracings of the neighborhood children

left on the driveway waiting for rain.

THE COURTSHIP OF WINDS