on the other side / poetry of sorts

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Thinking how, at
the end of that winter / those
days of inky darkness, I
got up on quivering, still
freezing bones
and boarded a plane with its roaring engines,
elbow against elbow,
suitcases stacked and squeezed in,
until we were all holding our breath

Yet as I looked out the window
at the heavy blue of night gathering
in a pool over the bay, and
our city (yes
I can say this now)
shining out with the gold of captured
afternoon light and glistening streets /
all that life / there
was the beginning of the inhale I'd been
looking for,
a quick exhale

When we shook our way
over those ashen clouds that had covered
the sky for months and
months, they
looked like cotton, like
childhood friends in a storybook
and I suddenly wasn't sure why
I'd been afraid of them for so long,
of the shadow they brought
because the sky was still all rose and fire
on the other side

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