By Eliza Callard

My days of being an Olympic swimmer

(which never began) are over. My body
is 40 and tired and I never competed

even in high school, yet I had, until now,
imagined that door open. The two

little girls giggling furiously while they leap-
frog over one another to play a complex

four-hand piano number — I will never be
one of them. It’s true I play the piano, but

never like that. I could practice these skills,
you say. What about the camera strapped

to the eagle’s back showing the flight we
can never have? Silent, smooth, feathered.

I only fly when I sleep.