The Winged-Hill of Otay Mesa

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By Gabriel Rubi

My hands lifted dirt on this earth since birth.
La Ala, marker to place the ballpark.
Where I’d trail fly balls over right field grass.
Later, a steel teetering beam, snapped bone,
as David played shortstop and mother kept
score. I wasn’t grounded, I soared on couch
or around the room wearing down the cast’s
heavy bottom, an area red-lined as dim
as the blinking light of our mounted-wing.
One could say this was the birthplace of planes.
A point in time, a man leapt from this hill.
Math in a glider. The first wing-controlled
flight. Aired success. A full circle. He saw
the land, the Pacific blue; was boundless.

Gabriel Rubi is a SoCal native. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Diego State University. He lived and died in video games, but now he is a father and husband afraid to die. He is a poet, translator and non-fiction writer. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Poetry International, Gulf Stream Magazine, The Shallow Ends, The Indianapolis Review and elsewhere. Gabriel Rubi is a 2017 Intro Journals Project Winner.