Flying Island

Peace Offerings it’s early enough windows still black I see myself when I flip the switch so quiet I can hear faint buzzing of kitchen light heat cranks on, down the street a dog barks to be let inside I can’t hear the door but it’s quiet again and I imagine her at the foot of a man outside the wind presses its face to my kitchen window, envious of steaming coffee and my gentle aloneness– I can’t see him  but I know his scent, feel his cheek on mine I’m reminded of doves how they’re never late, not really, and the odor of olives rotting, shriveled on a branch half-forgotten, perhaps in a box in my closet. I stand at the window so long my face fades with pre-dawn black, morphs into a fence,  a small tulip tree budding like a teen, a garden plot waiting. Becca Downs is a poet, freelance writer, and MFA candidate with the Mile-High MFA program at Regis University. Though currently residing in Denver, she lived in Indiana for 30 years and still considers herself a Hoosier at hear...