Jennie E Owen

Small steps to jump

Suspended a moment
the blue sky a crown upon your head
birds stars at your feet
You fly/flew/fell. 

Couldn’t you hear me?
Calling from my marrow,
aching that I could catch each
step mid air
palm to heel.
Down you gently
to the river bed.

You were never my creature.

You broke
in awkward places, I fear
            I could not fix this time
with torn knee kisses, tissues, lies.

Did you feel the wind
in your cape?
My pulse tremble under your wing?
In your ears, the whistle of my breath
between my teeth? 

I would have been that crown
            those stars
            this riverbed.

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Jennie E Owen’s writing has been widely published online, in literary journals and anthologies. She teaches creative writing for The Open University and lives in Lancashire, UK with her husband and three children. She is a PhD student at Manchester Metropolitan University, focusing on poetry and place.