Parasol

I walk on a bare sea wall

in Ketchikan, under northern

lights, green like hurricane

belly, brick bridge on gold wave

about to fly up to lime sky

a falling paper parasol. At the end

of the quay the pines want

a wind that shifts the silver needles.

I opened my heart six times,

each time I was not ready.

It is good for the forest, they say,

control burn, the pine cone

hearts shatter into blue slivers,

you can’t call them back, better

to let them rise into the drift

that takes them over the sea.

Ocean curls, the parasol flies light

into the sky, wings in layered film—

and no matter how many times

the heart opens or doesn’t, there

is no loss of spar, rib and skin.

I am a walled sea, I am a wing.

Lynn Finger’s writings have appeared in Unlost, MineralLitMag, Journal of Compressed Arts, and the Ekphrastic Review. Lynn is one of the founding editors of the forthcoming journal Harpy Hybrid Review. Lynn works with a group that mentors writers in prison.