Three Sheets to the Wind

by Lisa Vihos

I find them hanging on the line.
They willy-nilly catch the wind
and pull everything else with them:
socks, underwear, pantyhose.

Large, like spinnakers, they billow
on the summer breeze like three sighs,
three graces. They are reminders
of where I have been and where

I am going. First, the swaddling
sheet of infancy, when the world
was my oyster and all things miracles.
Second, the sheet of paper, the blank

on which I wrote my life story, inch-
by-inch and hour-by-hour. I made
an airplane; flew my craft to far-flung lands
where no one knew my name. A place

I could reinvent myself with the right words.
And last, the shroud. The coverlet in which
I spend the next few hours spread out
on this hard floor, tasting eternity.