Illustration by Anya Baker.

Fantasia

In the early morning,
sun cresting the horizon
everything looks plastic,
like some kind of fantasy,
sun and moon in the same sky.
The semi-suburbs of my street
are lit like a stage
in pink and orange.
And a heron,
large and graceful,
wings the color of the sky,
flies overhead.
As if it were the phoenix,
rising from the ashes of the dawn.

—By Norah Brady