C-5

by Christy Bailes

With an ear tag,
a chest hole,
and six knives
in my throat,
eyes balloon
in love-hate rain,

falling so violently
I can’t see the C-5
fly past as slow
as her last smile,
although I hear

the plane, drumming
a military farewell
with such force
her name drops
from my mouth.

Category: Poetry, SNHU Creative Writing, SNHU online creative writing, SNHU Student

About the Author

Christy Bailes lives in Fairfield, California. She is currently a clarinetist in the United States Air Force Band of the Golden West and has performed up and down the West Coast, as well as throughout the Northeast. Last year, her clarinet quartet, The Bay State Winds, produced an Air Force award-winning recording called Excursions. In addition to her busy life as a musician, she is pursuing a master’s degree in English and creative writing with an emphasis in poetry at Southern New Hampshire University. She has studied writing for ten years with the truly inspiring poet Lynne Knight of Berkeley, California. As a result of this mentorship, Christy Bailes has won an honorable mention twice in the Mattia International Poetry Contest. And even though her writing style can be quite surreal at times, she uses nature to fuel her passion by either running or cycling on trails that ignite creative ideas. Sharing the road so passionately with nature has led her down the writing path, and she couldn’t be more thrilled about this new adventure.