Flying South

Hang your doubt on the coat rack.
It never kept anyone warm.
Exchange it
for a coat of feathers.
When swallows fly south,
silhouetted by sunset,
they catch flashes of gold
on their wings before folding them
and falling. Then they reach again
for the light that carries them
a thousand miles.
You didn’t believe me.
We had pulled the car over
to watch a rare kind of sunset,
the kind that reaches its fire
eastward, beyond conventional borders.
I pointed, you squinted, and finally
you saw the candle-flicker
of sun-stained wings.
We stood there a long time,
leaning against the car, its veil of dust
rubbing off on our backsides,
until the sun slipped away
and its little disciples found their roosts.
We drove home in the gloaming, our voices
feathering into silence. Years later,
we still talk about that night.