The boy picks up a feather loosed from my wing –

artifact to denote swooping options lessened.

How many losses waive my chance at southern flight?

Instinct forecasts parting, squawks gospels of poise.

My flock advocate travel by morning. I tally feathers

among grasses from which I wove the nest.

Full-blooded, transfused with ambition,

babies’ goodbye now my goodbye.

I have spirit to sail lively. Joy made risk

from my heft’s deficit, I grip the branch,

tuck the weakest wing. Beckon back-lit

horizon that predicted mercy –

these grays once colors – to balance shadows

with nightfall. Lost season’s companions depart.

The boy flings the stray feather, watches twirl.

Note by note, chirp weaker, my warble acapella.

Sam Barbee has a new poetry collection, Apertures of Voluptuous Force (2022, Redhawk Publishing). He has three previous collections, including That Rain We Needed (2016, Press 53), a nominee for the Roanoke-Chowan Award as one of North Carolina’s best poetry collections of 2016 and Uncommon Book of Prayer (2021, Main Street Rag), which chronicles family travels in England. His poems have appeared recently in Poetry South, Salvation South, and upcoming in Cave Wall, among others; plus online journals Dead Mule School of Literature, Streetlight Magazine, American Diversity Report, Grand Little Things, and Medusa’s Kitchen. He is a two-time Pushcart nominee.