Fills my friends’ bodies like fog,
swirling  through limbs into translucent fingertips.
I tie strings to their ankles and attach them to my wrist,
afraid they’ll condense into early morning’s fading gray.
Last night I walked them through the park
to see fireflies racing through a soccer net’s sagging ropes
and spring peepers chirping
beneath drooping, silhouetted leaves.
Caught in the wind’s swaying exhale,
they bumped together like too many balloons,
silent, strings taught, clouds wrapped around their ribs. 

Heather Allen was born in Holt, Michigan, but is currently living in Nashville, Tennessee. Her work has been previously published in The Central Review and The Blue Route.