We are the plastic children, flying toward the sun.

We are the infirm rising through rooftops, we are the real
housewives of Duluth, our dresses blown above
our cheeks, we are the dads jetting above the jigsaws,
weedwackers. And the dead in their nightclothes or
La-Z-Boys or under the sea: all of us steering
with superheroic outstretched arms, into blue, beyond –

Except for those of us with our faces to the sky and our shoes
still here. We are astonished, some of us weeping, in
fear or because of beauty in spectacle, with the blind ones at
our sleeves asking what, the wind, and why. Recover
to tell them: We are not plastic children. We are
not flying. We are here, at home on the earth.

This poem appeared in This Land, Vol. 5, Issue 7, April 1, 2014.