[Editor’s note: I wrote this little piece on December 12th in response to that day’s prompt from the annual poetry advent calendar by Two Sylvias Press.]

I wake to white crowned sparrows whispering together beneath the bougainvillea in the corner of my little courtyard. The light is just returning. I am wide awake in the early morning, unusual for me, no gradual coming back, no desire to turn over, sink back into sleep. I had a dream, and my body somehow knows it was big. I close my eyes again, lie still, hoping to bring it back. I am flying over a narrow market street, small shops with colorful awnings, people milling, filling the road, no cars. Morocco comes to mind. I have no idea why. It is a steep street, and I am flying low, heading downhill. I can see faces. No one seems alarmed by me. In waking life, I’ve always suspected we used to know how to fly. I think people escaped from Atlantis by flying when it sank into the sea. I believe there’s something in our heads that controls flight. Maybe the pineal gland? We used to be able to activate it at will, a lost art, like the ability to wiggle our ears. When I wake up I think, oh, flying is the seventh sense. And I wonder if there might be more.