Gravity

She awoke with a deep intake of breath

and rolled onto her back.

The sun made a perfect pattern

on the ceiling and her eyes

followed the shape the curtains made.

He was up on both elbows

looking down on her.

“What is wrong with you?”

“What are you looking at?”

He followed her eyes

and turned to look at the ceiling.

Her hand shot out from her body

and shook as she pointed

to the shape.

A long slender neck wound

upward to a small head.

Feathers flowed down the back

and caught in the wind of the curtains.

“I was dreaming I was a bird.

I was taking off from the pond on Jackson street

and just as my wings cut through the air

shedding water and gravity

something caught my foot

and pulled me back to earth.”

She paused.

“And there I am stuck in white plaster.”

He looked closer at the figure on the ceiling.

“It looks like an old man

in a hat fishing for trout!”

He lay back down and patted her bare theigh under the sheets.

She pulled away and began to rise

but his arm was pinning her hair to the bed

and she suddenly fell back to the mattress.