“Flight Lessons” by Jessamyn Rains


I watched her through the window,
whisper-soft, feather gray,

over my morning coffee.
A tiny slip of being,

a charcoal smudge,
a pencil sketch against

the reluctant morning, she sang
the bleary-eyed sun

with a single eye full of dawn.
She opened her wings,

their span the length
of my open hand, and flew away

with my heavy heart.


Jessamyn Rains is a homeschooling mom of four, an Illinois native who ended up in Walden, Tennesse, which is as peaceful as it sounds. She is a former English instructor and world traveler who plays music and writes. She also dabbles in philosophy and foreign languages.