Ascension, the force that lifts

By Layle Keane Chambers

I lay await in blue claire sleep
suspended stilled readiness 

text ding 2:53 am test (to see if it got to me)
I respond yes! with an emoji heart, Amelia’s 

voice in my head ‘everyone has oceans to fly…’
and I can’t sleep when you are

you tried to call   no go   too far 
too on the otherside      I pick up

silence

I follow the signs and calculate times,
lines and gather, but it’s as if different rules 

are played, as if I can cradle in my two palms
lift and throw to the air, torn by the four winds

where I stand burst open in that bookstore
where I found the Earhart quote 

where I look up and wonder
where is ASCN 1ZZ

island of no indigenous peoples
sheered from the South Atlantic

a damn rock in the middle of the ocean
nothing romantic—

just another place for man to step
on his way to somewhere else 

where you tried to call
while in the act of rising

****

Layle Keane Chambers is a performing poet from Folly Beach, SC. Professor Emeritus (Theatre) and MFA in Creative Writing from New Mexico State University, her poetry has appeared in Collateral, The Wrath-Bearing Tree, “The Things We Carry Still” (Middle West Press), “Proud To Be V. 13” (SEMO Press) and won PSSC’s Perception Prize. Her debut chapbook “Caught in the Light” (FLP) is scheduled for release in early ‘26. She is a proud Air Force mom.