Stuck in a midway at the Chicago Midway,
stalled flights east to west, storm delays,
air-traffic-life overload. Waiting:
job, divorce, new diagnosis. Remission.

We walk the perimeter of old lives, circle inward
hand in hand, stepping to a new rhythm,
our cadence of counting days.

We are the epicenter. Your arms encircle me,
corral a stampede of uncertainty, embrace newborn
vulnerability—two fawns slick with birth, wobbling,
eyes blinking, astonished.

I lean back into your belly, feel the sculpture of us.
You rest your chin on my head. The spinning tempest
lifts, lengthens, opens to stars.

We are cleared for take-off.

Catherine Arra is a native of the Hudson Valley in upstate New York, where she lives with wildlife and changing seasons until winter, when she migrates to the Space Coast of Florida. Arra teaches part-time and facilitates local writing groups. She is the author of four full-length collections and four chapbooks. Recent work appears in Thimble Literary Magazine, Origami Poems Project, Stone Circle Review, Unleashed Lit., Anti-Heroin Chic, Unbroken, and Impspired. Find her at http://www.catherinearra.com