A Place to Stand

It was at the gas station off Palmer Avenue,
on a Friday afternoon when the cars were swarming
the road and the breeze rushed through
the first day after the June heat had broken.

It was at the gas station—or just before, at the traffic
light, where a break in the clouds sprouted
wings, wider than a wandering albatross, white
feathers weaving out of the sky and back into it.

It was at the gas station fueling my father’s car
in this suburban New York town I knew I needed
to leave—it was there, for the first time,
that the ground was firm enough to leap.

GENEVIEVE CREEDON

Genevieve Creedon is a scholar, poet, and essayist, raised in Larchmont-Mamaroneck. Her writing across genres focuses on the wonders and mysteries of earthly life. Her work appears in About Place, Cider Press Review, Frigg, Kelp Journal, Narrative Northeast, Still: the Journal, and Thin Air Magazine, among other publications.