ANN WEIL

Secrets of Flight

PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2024: VOL. 39.

You do not have to be good.
Mary Oliver

I did not know
that words
might lift themselves
from their paper perches,
stretch their serifs
into tiffany wings.

Nor did I realize
I could climb aboard
their sinewy backs,
take flight from what is,
leave chrysalis behind—
unburdened.

Ann Weil writes at her home on the corner of Stratford and Avon in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and on a deck boat at Snipe’s Point Sandbar off Key West, Florida. She earned her doctorate at the University of Michigan and is a former special education teacher and professor. Her work appears in such venues as DMQ Review, Pedestal Magazine, New World Writing Quarterly, Crab Creek Review, 3Elements Review, and The Shore. Her chapbook, Lifecycle of a Beautiful Woman, debuted in April 2023 from Yellow Arrow Publishing. Read more of Ann’s poetry at annweilpoetry.com.