Jane Ann Fuller

The Speed of Light

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“and the air we could not hold had come to be there all the time for us”
—W.S. Merwin

Half dream-boy, half downy frigate
—I loosed him to solar wind. From the cliffs
I watched his wings make fists
against my wanting. At first his figure

pitched through clouds and balanced there
—his indecision beautiful on air,
Then the flare— his body sparked
and lurched— his fingers jellyfishing air—

his bluish knees, his heels like gannets
diving for sardines or forgiveness.
Where did he go, that final no
to all we should have been—

broken body—
I will never recover.

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Jane Ann Fuller’s Half-Life (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions) was a finalist for the National Indie Excellence Awards. A Best of the Net Nominee and recipient of the James Boatwright III Poetry Prize, Fuller has published in such journals as The MacGuffin, Calyx, SWWIM, Hunger Mountain, Triggerfish Critical Review, Still: the Journal, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, Persimmon Tree, and elsewhere. Anthologies include I Thought I Heard A Cardinal Sing, and Women Speak as well as All We Know of Pleasure: Poetic Erotica by Women. Jane Ann hails from the Appalachian southeastern Ohio’s Hocking Hills where she lives with her brilliant husband, Doug.