Somewhere in the 100 billion cells
of my brain is the memory
of the playground in second grade
when Jenny told me birds could fly
because their bones were hollow,
and, she reasoned, if we could lose
enough weight, we, too,
could have hollow bones, and we, too
could fly.
Surely linked to that memory
are thousands of other neurons
that disprove her claim—
neurons related to air pressure, thrust,
strong breast muscles, osteoporosis—
but there is, perhaps,
still one cell in there somewhere
across the synaptic gap,
that lights up at the memory
of Jenny’s suggestion
as if to say,
wow, that’s cool,
let’s try it.