Wings

Sara Eddy

For a while, to put socks
on my hands was to grow paws,
sprout furry ears.
I strained upward at the age
of four, imagined a launch,
pushed my mind into the sky,
and wings opened out
from my shoulders.
For a full year I made myself
into a dog, ruddy with pure love
on awkward paws, a dog
with heart and wings.
Now, I put my human
feet in the garden, let soil
cover over my human toes.
The sun warms my back.
I plant seedlings and expect them
to grow, expect that I will be
a gardener, a person who
holds the glamorous power
of getting things done.
It’s not so different,
this unfurling.

Sara Eddy is the author of two chapbooks of poetry, Tell the Bees (A3 Press, 2019) and Full Mouth (Finishing Line, 2020). She has published widely in print and online literary journals: her poems have appeared in Threepenny Review, Baltimore Review, South85, Raleigh Review, and Pink Panther, among other venues. She is Assistant Director of the writing center at Smith College, in Northampton, Massachusetts, and lives in nearby Amherst with a teenager, a black cat, and a white dog. She was recently writer-in-residence at the Prospect Street Writers’ House in Bennington, VT. Her website is saraeddypoetry.com.