by Elise Moberly
A separate, severed heaven. Shifting cloud-cover, the silvering of gold-lined shadows
against the stratosphere. The pilled sky: peppered cotton, a cirrocumulus field plump for
picking. The world is a window flung open, the sky a sheet hung on the line to dry,
scrubbed of blue dye. A laundry bucket tips, dumps its wash of the west wind. The black
bird is fighting for a flue, a draft to drift by. And you, buckled in, cockpit tight, camera
ready: a winnowing of will, a whistle whittling down. Where are your wings, the flight
you’ve borne off a bony back? Isn’t this what you wanted: a breath of suspension, the
arresting of a heartbeat, the flutter before falling? You—Icarus the fire-flung, sun of
morning, stranded star. You, precious you—a hurling, humming hunger.
Elise Moberly serves as the managing editor of The Write Game, which focuses on literary narratives and their emergence in digital mediums. She earned her MFA in fiction at Brigham Young University and serves with the faculty of a local university in Utah. Her work can be found in Redivider, Calliope and Inscape, among others.