Drinking the wind

I'll drink the wind, she says
her face against the cold glass
winter waiting to bite outside the door.

I'll drink the wind, and I'll
run with the dogs
my toes will fill with sand, then
you will wash me clean.

It's too cold, I say
too cold today. the trees are shivering, look
and the dogs are in bed, tucked up with their tails

Pink, indignant, she wipes her scarlet nose with her hand. It is not,
she says, gazing through the glass with her wide ocean eyes.
It is not too cold, and, 'sides
the trees are not shivering. they're not.
it's the wind.
and I'll drink the wind.
drink it all down to my belly

And will it make you fly? I ask her, watching an Indian minah
alight on the washing line, its feathers sleek and dark.

She looks into the gathering dusk. Oh, yes, she says
I will fly! Like the big crows do, the ones
that eat the rubbish from the bins, those two
big an' black an' they say caw, caw, caw

And they fly, I say, wrapping her in my arms. Like you will
with your bellyful of wind.

And she whispers, Yes,
as I hold her against ice and flight both together
safe, and warm, and battened down
for just today.

- Kathy, 5/6/12