When you looked up close at us
we were a misfit bunch —
none of our shapes exactly fit,
our parts adapted from some other use

We limped and lumbered along somehow —
it seemed remarkable, in fact,
that we had come this far,
and then the light shifted
and the vectors of our power aligned

Those parts that didn’t fit
never supported us.
As our lines straightened
and our rays gained strength,
the jalopy of our former sense of self
chugged to a stop,
abandoned in our upward climb.

©Wendy Mulhern
November 28, 2017