Birds & Boundaries
Maximilian Heinegg
Wendy finds the upstate sky
wider than Boston, as birds streak past
what frontiers our eyes allow.
Our daughter Ava wings her way
down to the path from Maple Avenue’s
flying traffic. For her, home
does not end where the road begins,
so we teach her to see danger in
demarcations. Our weeks spent restoring
Vivian’s bungalow, where your father
was raised, where he listened to the Amtrak
trains pass, & where he planted
our wedding trellis. We left, guilty—
a good nest has a way of making the sky
seem not worth the trouble of taking wing.
Maximilian Heinegg’s recent poems are accepted for publication at Tar River, Nine mile, Structo (UK), Crab Creek, and The Chiron Review, among others.