for Phyllis
I remember the day she chose me.
It was fall. I didn’t know then
I would come to love her, didn’t know
how trust would grow, like catnip, like oregano,
more robust, more wild every year.
I didn’t know how I’d been waiting to be chosen,
that she would help me find the wings I’d never felt,
never seen. That she would dare me to fly.
That she would be the wind.