Flyer

We were grumbling again about the long isolation
loud enough to trade complaints
with the tenant next door, her stamp-

size balcony butting up to ours, neighbourly
enough, in the realm of concrete condos 
high above the world on the 21st floor 

(privileged as we know we are), the ocean
merely blocks away, our view this span
of sparkling blue, the distance to Japan.

Evening waves had shifted, were churning a froth of white, 
stirred by foreign, sideways winds, furrowing the sea
to lines that skewed the wrong way from shore.

She kept saying how they tempted her, calling
her to dive right in, how she pictured being tossed
by them – a joyous, bouncing beach ball

and suddenly she leapt, arms wide, from the railing, 
her open face shining with the red setting sun, 
and for seconds, I swear, she was flying. 

But when we looked and saw her lying on the street,
she was on her side, unmoving and bent, crumpled, 
nearly in the shape of a fallen paper crane. 

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Heidi Greco lives and writes in Surrey, BC. Her next book strays from previous ones – as it’s not poetry or fiction, but a look at one of her favourite films, which will be marking its 50th anniversary next year. Early in 2021, Vancouver’s Anvil Press will be publishing Glorious Birds: A Celebratory Homage to Harold and Maude.   

Website: https://heidigreco.ca 
Twitter: @heidigreco47