We're going now

We're going now,
he said to me,
the spirit in my dreams.
We're going now, aren't you ready yet?
Impatient little man.

He whisked me away
carried me as if by magic,
or by dreams.
We're going now,
but which way?

We left myself at home
behind, instead choosing
to take flight
out of the window
in the middle of the night.

I felt the rush of air
against my cheek,
my legs dangled
but I did not fall
to the ground.

I begged him to tell me
where we were going
and what we were going to see.
But we're going now,
was all he said to me.

We landed over water,
somehow, on some lake,
and stayed there watching
sunrise until it was too late.
I saw the sun begin to peek

and then he pulled me home.
And when I awoke
inside my bed
I knew then what he had known.
We're going now, I whispered

and suddenly it was so.
I was gone
and back again.
Suddenly too much to take,
I shut my eyes again.

Ignition

"Ignition"
By Laurie Lico Albanese, from her book blue suburbia

I was fifteen
when I felt myself
ignite--

it wasn't one thing
like the back of a boy's neck
or my breasts waiting under wool
for sweaty palms to awaken their nipples

it wasn't the way I could buy a beer in Rudy's bar,
get behind the wheel of a car
and feel the gears shaking in my hands.

No. I ignited that spring
when I walked up and down the turnpike
looking for a job

hands folded behind my back,
fingers rubbing at the spark
each time someone said sorry
and I could hear my mother sneer.

I flew across the road heading west,
ribbon ripped from my hair
by the spray of oncoming trucks,
footprints dimming in dirt

until that boy on the Harley Davidson
put one dark boot in my path,
gunning his motor for me to alight

I slipped my legs around his hips,
dumping everything out of my handbag
right there

in front of the old Dairy Queen
I burst into flames
when I felt how fast
I could move away from home.