F-L-I-G-H-T

 moon—

when shock comes from the bottom

up, when the solid cliff

shifts,

and the only railing

is air

I have to pause

 on it

and it bears me until

my boot finds something

a little wider than itself

and then holds on

and says okay, it’s okay

now, you can

let go.

Who really believes,

ascending,

that they’ll fall?

  The climb

is hand over hand

pull up the knee

scrape the face of the wall

and purchase

a hold—

listen: a cascade

of stones tumbles

into the tide

far enough below

that living

is suspicious

and when I hear them

collect and then settle,

they are

a small flock

of plovers

pausing

Later I watch a gull

fall straight down

to the beach

and hover over the water

and then float on it.

What sudden surrender

allows a bird its air

and then, just as purposed,

its slip? 

But remember I am not a bird.

I am not even a moon

though I’d like to be

sometimes,

when cliffs let go

and I step out

into air…

I’m just too solid for anything

other than

falling.

And so I go back

alone,

when my children

aren't playing

below me.

I go to different,

higher cliffs.

Smoother edges.

I lean against bare

air

and feel absolute-

ly no resistance,

just solid

nothing.

the sea

 is a remote guess

below me

and a far off lobster boat

makes halos

around a buoy.

Gulls bob in the wake

of swallowed bait,

too greedy

for the next scrap

of gutts

to fly off alone