Streaming into a sky through string, solitary
child swoops on a rail tag and paper ailerons

what if she could fly, open the back of her heart
into wings, what sky then, what blue

she wants most to float into would float
into her, so why did teacher have to say

Pharoah’s daughter could not see blue
no word for it, no hieroglyph

river only mudddy from under the muddled shade
of canopy swagged over barge

how could she have trawled her regal fingers
through green or brown to say what Nile was

the child could not say ocean unless blue
current ocean flowed through

could not say sky, paper eagle
plunging, no wind unless blue