Sometimes I want to step off of the ledge
and for a dizzy instant feel the air
filling my shirt and touselling my hair
like a lover as I hover off the edge.
Sometimes I want to close my eyes and go
off into space, weightless, suddenly free,
and before giving up to gravity
exult in universal ebb and flow.
Of course it's what comes next that keeps you from it:
moments of flailing arms and kicking feet
as the earth drags you screaming to the street,
and mocks you with your own weight as you plummet--
But still, I can't help thinking of these things:
Dreaming of, at the final moment, wings.
2 comments:
Bravo! And not only for #40. I think they are all wonderful.
My three-year-old nephew recently told his mother how angry he was that he could not fly like Superman.
"But I have an idea," he said. "If I jump off the balcony..."
The only thing you grow out of, in my experience, is the desire to jump off the balcony. Pain does that to you. But it doesn't eradicate the wish to fly.
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