Learning to Land

by Tom Healy

The world folded
and I let go.

Cuffed, shoved and
kicked down,

my single-engine Cessna
dropped through

black-boot
clouds and rain.

Though I was
mugged and tumbled,

it’s actually difficult
for a small plane

not to fly.
The propeller lashed

the air and the plane
jumped

through the window
of late afternoon,

leveling off
a couple thousand feet

above the earth’s belly,
its easy rise and fall

against a ribcage
of trees and road.

There was a slow lift
from the body

below me breathing-
the world unfolded

and I let go.

-from What the Right Hand Knows (c) by Tom Healy. Reprinted with permission of Four Way Books. All rights reserved.