What Holds the Sky

Oladosu Michael Emerald

Even the stars lean into each other.

You call it gravity; I call it faith in

a shared fall. The boy in the field

watches a kite pull at the thread,

his fingers reddening against the

pull of flight. Each tug is a prayer

to the wind; each slack a moment

of grace. At the edge of the city,

the buildings echo a hymn of glass

& steel, each window catching the

sky’s light & passing it on like an

unspoken promise. Somewhere, a crow

rides the curve of the horizon, its wings

a bridge between silence & sound.

It doesn’t ask what holds it up, only

trusts the air to hold it together. It’s

the tension of staying & leaving,

of holding & letting go. Tell me,

how do we make peace with the

weight of what we love? The kite

wants the sky; the boy wants the kite.

Both are tethered to a gravity they can’t name.

& maybe this is what it means to belong:

to lean toward the edge & still find

the ground beneath us.

OLADOSU MICHAEL EMERALD is the author of Every Little Thing That Moves, Art editor at Surging Tide Magazine, a Pioneer Fellow of the Muktar Aliyu Art Residency, Winner of the GPC poetry contest, Spring contest, second-runner-up in the Fireflies poetry contest and elsewhere. He tweets @garricologist, and @garrycologist on Instagram.