Kite Experiment in D Minor chosen for Best of the Web!

How did my body become electric?
When did I become a house key tangled in the apple tree

of some English gentleman’s Manor? Why the gravitational pull
away from the kite of expectation?

I am older now, I have watched my mother die.
She who ruled the disco in a Qiana dress,
theatrical and conductive, beautiful they all said.

I finally forgave her
the small cruelties of my youth
when I walked through the museum of her childhood:

hiding under the front porch
knees in packed mud, while overhead
the thundercloud she called father Zeused his rods.

I learned to roar from her. Now my ears
hear even the lowest fidelity, I don’t mind the scratch
and hum on each drum. The beat is the song

I croon, grounded and alone,
nobody’s lightning rod, nobody’s drone.

Originally published in the Mother’s Day 2021 issue of Escape into Life

Nominated for Best of the Web 2021