And She Moves
(On some lines from Nick Cave / for Naomi)
And she moves among the sparrows
and seed falls from her hand
like droplets from the fingers
of Aphrodite in a fountain
And she moves among the shadows
and light trickles from her fingertips
like grains of wheat scattering in the wind
And she moves something deep inside of me
and birds skitter from the shadows
sprinkling dust and sunlight
and I am stilled, trembling.
Another Flight
Moving imperceptibly through
the world above the clouds,
which is no world at all
but pure ether, time
between cities attenuated
to fine fiber along which
we glide. Cut from
our tether to earth
we seem to float,
superior briefly even
to birds, until gravity
reasserts its rule
the plane sinks as
the heart rises in
the chest and we
bump along the earth
once more.
Gregory Luce, author of Signs of Small Grace (Pudding House Publications), Drinking Weather (Finishing Line Press), Memory and Desire (Sweatshoppe Publications), and Tile (Finishing Line Press), has published widely in print and online. He is the 2014 Larry Neal Award winner for adult poetry, given by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. He is retired from National Geographic, works as a creative writing instructor for Writopia Lab, and lives in Arlington, VA.