FLEDGING by Genevieve Beech

FLEDGING

for D

When you first met air, I heard you

trill, I saw you small

with vernixed hair like feathers,

spright wings unfolding

in jittered rhythms. I fed you

full, I lulled you, latchling:

we were loveborne, wind-light,

free, my tired heart renewed

in yours. And time hopped

strange beside us, parts of me

in early death—not here

but far ahead, half-turned

toward an upcast thing,

mid-flight, on unknowable wind.

Genevieve Beech edits Motherlore, a writing magazine on care, mothering and ecology, and works as a librarian and proofreader. Her poetry features in Ink Sweat & Tears, Mother Becoming (Demeter Press), Beyond Words Magazine, Thicket Magazine (Fawn Press) and Literary Mama. She enjoys the many veins of bookmaking: designing, editing, writing, repairing, lending.