SageGreenJournal.org
voices out of the West, mostly poetry, personal to planetary
Zoey McKenzie
Shiprock, New Mexico
Zoey McKenzie is a poet from Shiprock, New Mexico, on the Navajo Nation. She works as a veterinarian in public health, enjoys watching fast zombie movies with her cat and hiking with her two dogs. Click >HERE
to read more of Zoey's poems on her blog.
Jump
I spread my fingers out between your shoulder blades and shove
Don’t doubt that I love you as I push you out of the plane.
When you’re skydiving, there is
Only a moment when conditions are right, only a moment before conditions are wrong
I exhale as I push and inhale when I see you spiraling free, disappearing into the vague sky and clouds
Exhale and inhale--because you told me to breathe.
I don’t want you to miss this moment.
Muddy red jug ring, silver locking washer, ant sized chip of green glass, cubic zirconium
The wind is twisting and spinning the fragile, frayed ends of my hair
The tips that were short and bleached on Christmas Eve 2019,
These tips are now the fried ends of long, and are easily knotted by spring winds in 2021
Spring winds that billow out the curves of your parachute and counteract gravity
Bluster and gust that will allow you to land safely from your skydive—my wish
Brake hiss-puff.I hop off the bus, the very last stop,
Door squeak and slam pushing me home from school
The same wind was blowing then, eternally transforming reality like so much sand
Dirt boulders blown past my lashes and into my eyeballs as I climbed the hill trail to home
My dime store sneakers slip on the rocks and sand, too poor for tread and traction
Enigmatic yellow weed stems, jagged slice of inner tube rubber, rusty snip of chicken wire
There is only more wind when I pull open the screen door and twist the knob
It’s locked.
The wind crudely flicks tears from my cheeks, eventually allowing gravity to pull them to the earth
Little splashes of yellow-grey mud, surprisingly festive colors and patterns revealed on river rocks
Smaller rivers born, running and dried. Multiple life-times for some unknown creature
A lonely eternity for a 7-year old human.
Sometimes you have to be left behind.
That day I was left behind so that I could take care of my little sister.
She got home from Kindergarten a little while after me.
I devised magical adventures and games until the door was re-opened and our parents were home.
This time I am left behind so that you can find adventure and magic
Your heart beating fast with discovery excitement and joy
Strong.In the woods.In the sky.Finding your wolf pack.
Sometimes when you care about someone, you have to push them out of the plane
You have to let them leave you behind
Water wets the cream powder, polarized bubbles form, sequestering dry mix inside
A strange planet formed, small lifetimes commence
I smash the bubble with my spatula.
I fall in love with wild things.I make my own pancakes.
Stripes of breakfast sunshine illuminate and cast shadows of mundane little people
You and me, we were going to install them in odd places and document--art.
Spray paint pin up stencils of John Wayne in pink stilettos, red rouge and coral lipstick--more of our art.
Sun trying not to gawk, peeking through the flicker and groan of windmill blade shadows lazily turning,
Pumping cool aquifers of tears filtered clean by the earth.
I can’t go with you.Much as I would like to, I cannot share your parachute.
That would put us both in danger.
I want you to land safely because I love you.