The Day After the Fall

The Day After the Fall

…like a serpent down her shoulder, dark,…

                                                Hart Crane

It’s the day after that’s worse

than the fall itself.  Those moments

and minutes of phftttttt! wait wait then up

come on, and at ‘em I’m fine before they begin

their creeping

descent beneath the skin, in

the muscle that, for its own survival-second

allowed the bounce, became a virtual balloon, all bone

and nerve huddled under the cowl  

of it.  And then: —the flight

to the guard the vital neck and spine

is really

its retreat

so that into the length

of the second day what rises is something other

than the blue bruise

            (but oh so stunning a blue, a wattle

            of righteous blue, like when the Tom’s

            whole face, snood too, is a held breath

            I’ll have my way with you blue…

            but before all that he spooks     

            and spurs, gets ruffled out

            of the yard because the weight

            and pluck of staying is the scald

            of hot water, every saturated plume

            a loose stone, not the way, if this isn’t going

            too far,

            Eve’s staying was her first swallow

            held, when it was in her

            throat, when, still clutching the fruit, she offered it

            out, not to her mate, but to the serpent

            herself, who, blue and less nervous,

            let loose the branch

            and twirled inside Eve’s thigh, so when the whole

            body came (for days and days later) into its final

            weight she’d, they’d both be,

            not too meekly, not too heavy, sure of every 

            beauty 

Aside from that what has to rise is the body itself.

After impact it's not an ache,really, it's 

negotiating new space, the skin prickling

every time it senses (even if every

surface is flat) going down.