These Hazy Days

My Fall

Have you ever fallen in a wide blue sky
that never ends?
I have. Last May.

Crocuses grew on the clouds,
and the birds were curved and white
like grooved porcelain.
The sun was orange
and then red when the haze rolled in.

I couldn't breathe,
but I didn't need to.

I heard steps echoing,
as if someone walked through marble
halls of ice --
or as if a staircase wound around me,
up and up and on, invisible,
and old women climbed it carefully
with their wooden canes a-tap.
But I think it was my heartbeat.

I liked my fall.

I met lots of new people,
but our relationships never had time to stagnate
before they passed me by.
Some days the people came down in torrents,
like rain, blurs of faces, turning wheels,
few of which I remember now.

But there was one who stayed awhile.
They had a gracious smile
and a deep, warm voice
that reminded me of my life before--
before I fell and never stopped.
They told me their name
and I told them mine.
Now in the darkening blue,
I can't remember either.

I miss my friend.

I don't know what I did wrong.
Maybe the gravity took them down.
I will never let it steal me, never.
I made that error once.
I do not want to go back.

Around me the porcelain birds are soaring
and calling softly to the dimming sun.
There is no moon here,
and no stars,
no swirls or grains of glinting dust,
no lines of scattered white.
They want me to come down,
all of them do--
they stab me with ceramic beaks
and yell at me, shake me.

I will not come down.