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Carried Away
One rainy night we sat in traffic and, overtired in back, you saw a wind-whipped grocery bag afloat beyond the clutch of jagged branches, swept by gusts and whirled in eddies. A sudden downdraft swooped it earthward, where it danced till with a whoosh a current luffed it past the power lines. Disowned by gravity, small ghost not yet snagged by twiggy fingers, it couldn’t reach the earth. Thin-skinned, it pulsed, translucent jellyfish. You wept and pled to be let out into the dark and slanted rain, somehow to save that desolate thing. The light turned green and still you begged, Go back, go back, on its behalf, caught and held, bossed and tossed by a will much greater than its own.