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      October 31, 2008Cathryn EssingerTo Levitate …

      My mother swears she saw
      my baby brother rise from his cot
      one stormy night when
      we were living upstate.
      She was awake, checking the shutters,
      when she saw him levitate,
      a foot or more, covers rising
      with him the way they do
      in carnival shows, so you don’t see
      the wires. But, he lay soft and pliant,
      a floater, weightless as
      a shadow on the wall.
      “Something in the air,” Mother said,
      because she believed in such things,
      and reminded us often that most
      children know how to fly.
      And I do remember running down a hillside,
      breathless, the ground rising to meet me,
      my heart lifting my blood
      so effortlessly
      I knew that if I stepped out onto the air
      that it would hold me.
      I may even have done it
      without realizing
      how easy it is, before doubt takes hold
      and weds you to the ground.
      Odd that we should forget
      such things.
      Odd, too, when I tell the story
      how no one believes exactly,
      but the room gets quiet
      and everyone listens.

      from #25 - Summer 2006

      Cathryn Essinger

      “I write poetry because it is the one place where I can combine fiction, feelings, and facts without losing the reader’s trust. I belong to a small poetry group that has been together for almost twenty years—The Greenville Poets. Without them, my poetry would be unexpressed.”