Liftoff

by Laura Reece Hogan

The path of aspen-gold slips,

swallowed by the mountain’s shadow, dim

beyond my design or hope.

You say little, but words swirl—

no ahead and no behind, only you.

On the takeoff from South Bend you spread

scarlet feathers of fire, flash of phoenix,

majestic as we lift away

from all the rest, meaning my wreckage.

Now the people spin as distant planets,

wearily circling the sun

with all its changing weather

and we a red flaming planet,

I yours alone, with the seas and winds of you

ruling my atmosphere.

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Laura Reece Hogan is the author of Butterfly Nebula (Backwaters, University of Nebraska Press, 2023), winner of the Backwaters Prize in Poetry, Litany of Flights (Paraclete Press, 2020), winner of the Paraclete Poetry Prize, the chapbook O Garden-Dweller (Finishing Line Press), and the nonfiction book I Live, No Longer I (Wipf & Stock). She is one of ten poets featured in the anthology In a Strange Land (Cascade Books). Her poems have appeared in America, Scientific American, Sugar House Review, RHINO, The Christian Century, Verse Daily and elsewhere.