Gravity

I know it’s a trick and gravity will find me. I was seven when

I met her. Gravity, queen of nightmares. Warrior, hunter, with

wings and a bow. Even now, her powers unmatched by any

god. She commands metal steel across the currents. My father

gave me the science of flying. Aerodynamic lift equation. Lift

will equal weight of the plane in pounds, air density changes

with altitude, the velocity and the curvature of wings matter for

the angle of attack. I was comforted by his humming as he drew

gray lines in pencil. He said Newton made it possible, also Bernoulli.

Men of aviation and dreams. Science has failed me. When the sky

folds into the plane, when the darkness sounds like an empty,

hungry mouth. When gravity hunts, a falcon with brown eyes

and a red red heart, the distance between my father’s voice

and the thunder of jets multiplies. My first flight, I counted

heartbeats. I have been counting them ever since.

Breakings

Things collapse sometimes

cakes, hearts, bridges, universes

they break up and crack open,

yellow yolk dripping, oozing

out of the shell, promises

unlived, unloved, orphaned

leftover stars dying in a burst

of fire and gas and heat.

Collapsing things are wrecked,

waterless, dried bulbs without

the heart, empty fields, browning

grass, no desert orange flowers

blooming. They are wingless birds,

half-made, stalking creatures.

I have loved such things despite

the wounds. Wished for the bright

haze of morning to fill the room

waiting for the sagging, forgotten

bits to reanimate in the sun, grow

full, expand with light, a dazing

burst of colors against the hollow

brown husk of them. But collapsing

things heave against hope, they drag

leaden stones to sink. They are not

the color red. To love cracked things

is to love the breaking, to love

the blood after it seeps out of

the body, it is to know there is

only ash, and still, to sing.