flying lessons
and even a flock of starlings system whirling
synchronized without practice or premeditation
must learn its grace from these queer bodies on
this holy dance floor
this friday night murmuration.
even the sway the heart-thud the lemon-salt-tequila in my throat
too tame to capture you
kite-string you firework you
open runway you
hold this moonglow by a thread
singing my blood into belonging.
and to fall in love with only your body is both crude
perhaps and wholly wonderful somehow
to pretend this hollow-boned desire is far enough
from rest and close enough to language
to still be home in a stranger’s mouth
where all beginnings are possible and no one is
ghost yet and i don’t need your name
to know that if you leave we leave
together so stay with me
in this dark cocoon
this precarious safety
your arms like wings or furled parachutes
hours above toronto where the only stranger to our bodies is gravity
tonight is enough of a reason
to live
Jody Chan is an environmental justice organizer and queer writer of colour based in Toronto. She writes from her experiences of queerness, trauma, and mental illness. She is a 2017 VONA alum, and her poetry has been published in Ricepaper Magazine, Minola Review, and Ascend Magazine.