Shadow Shifter

Alone on the short cut home
I turn my headlights off,
so I can feel as if I’m flying.

It is dusk, then dark.
With shadowed leaves
and birds,
I breathe in the silence.

The trees fold
over me.
I soar through them.
I am transformed into bliss.

I blend in with the branches.
I wash darkness around me
second by second,

headlong forward, forgetting
faces, sound, light.

Here, now I know only myself.

No other eyes.
No returned gaze.

Forward I propel,
skimming leaves, branches.

I am one with my machine.

It rides out of me.

I become air.
I become wind.
I become speed.

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Suzanne Ondrus’ poetry books Passion Seeds and Death of an Unvirtuous Woman deal with history, foreign cultures, women’s sexuality, racism, identity, and domestic violence serve as platforms for discussion of these taboo topics. She was the 2013 Reed Magazine Markham Poetry Prize winner, a 2017 featured UNESCO World Book Capital poet in Guinea, Conakry, and a 2018-2020 Fulbright Scholar to Burkina Faso. She is from Ohio, USA and presently lives in Bogota. Hear her read her poems on her YouTube channel Suzanne Ondrus and find her updates and links to her poems on suzanneondrus.com.