Toni Partington is a poet, editor, collage artist, life/career coach,

and grant writer. Her new book, Wind Wing, a collection of poems

dedicated to the women who transformed her life, will be available for

$10. Toni’s poetry has appeared in the NW Women’s Journal, Selected

Poems of the River Poets’ Society, The Cascade Journal, VoiceCatcher

(editions 3 and 4), OutwardLink.net and others. She is the author of a

poetry chapbook, Jesus Is A Gas (2009). She serves as an associate

editor on the collective of VoiceCatcher, an annual Pacific Northwest

anthology of women writers. Toni is a regular columnist for Writing

The Life Poetic, an online Zine that complements the print version of

the book by Sage Cohen, http://writingthelifepoetic.typepad.com.

Wind Wing

Sweet breeze

scented with orange blossoms in early summer

caress my face pressed against the

open wind-wing in her Impala.

These rides; a secret time to talk

while we forget she is crazy –

top down, headed home with drippy cones

her, strawberry

me, maple nut.

Just enough time to adjust the wind-wing

while the red leather seats grow warm

she lets me push buttons to find

the right song for our sing-along.

These are the times I remember now

in melancholy middle age –

her hair cut short, dyed blonde

shoulders tanned above the halter-top

while shorts sprout bare legs

down to bright red toenails.

I picture this as her departure from upstate New York

and Catholic School rules

when California set her free

and took her down.

I watched her ricochet between two worlds –

safe home or padded room

delicacies or dry-mouthed delirium

green lawns or barred doors

Sunday Mass or shock treatments

her sanity – barely or not at all.

I long for the Impala

it is easier than longing for her –

a drive along Victoria Avenue

lined with orange groves and old songs

while we drift between dark nights and darker days.

Her life, like the wind-wing

unlatched slowly, one inch at a time

till the wind arrives at high pitch.

Throw it wide open and watch everything fly away.