THE SPARROW QUEEN

Remember the black-and-gold feathered wings slipping softly through chilled morning air.

Remember the spritely shadow she leaves flitting over wet patches of Earth as she flies, beak pointing north, glass eyes dark and depthless.

Remember those brief seconds when the world is weightless, and her grey underbelly bristles in the wind, each tiny feather waging a formidable war against gravity.

Remember how she soars with the practiced grace of a trapeze artist, how she hears the silent symphony of freedom with every lithe movement, how she reigns over infinite stretches of cloud and sky –

I was the Sparrow Queen. Transformed from the flickering embers of urban life, I rose out of the smog and flew, unfettered, until my ephemeral joy was greeted by a window pane and yet another muffled surrender.

Nora-Kathleen Berryhill