Jump

 

 

I spread my fingers out between your shoulder blades and shove

Don’t doubt that I love you as I push you out of the plane.

When you’re skydiving, there is

Only a moment when conditions are right, only a moment before conditions are wrong

I exhale as I push and inhale when I see you spiraling free, disappearing into the vague sky and clouds

Exhale and inhale--because you told me to breathe.

I don’t want you to miss this moment.

 

Muddy red jug ring, silver locking washer, ant sized chip of green glass, cubic zirconium

The wind is twisting and spinning the fragile, frayed ends of my hair

The tips that were short and bleached on Christmas Eve 2019,

These tips are now the fried ends of long, and are easily knotted by spring winds in 2021

Spring winds that billow out the curves of your parachute and counteract gravity

Bluster and gust that will allow you to land safely from your skydive—my wish

 

Brake hiss-puff.  I hop off the bus, the very last stop,

Door squeak and slam pushing me home from school

The same wind was blowing then, eternally transforming reality like so much sand

Dirt boulders blown past my lashes and into my eyeballs as I climbed the hill trail to home

My dime store sneakers slip on the rocks and sand, too poor for tread and traction

Enigmatic yellow weed stems, jagged slice of inner tube rubber, rusty snip of chicken wire

 

There is only more wind when I pull open the screen door and twist the knob

It’s locked.

 

The wind crudely flicks tears from my cheeks, eventually allowing gravity to pull them to the earth

Little splashes of yellow-grey mud, surprisingly festive colors and patterns revealed on river rocks

Smaller rivers born, running and dried. Multiple life-times for some unknown creature

A lonely eternity for a 7-year old human.

Sometimes you have to be left behind.

 

That day I was left behind so that I could take care of my little sister.

She got home from Kindergarten a little while after me.

I devised magical adventures and games until the door was re-opened and our parents were home.

This time I am left behind so that you can find adventure and magic

Your heart beating fast with discovery excitement and joy

Strong.  In the woods.  In the sky.  Finding your wolf pack.

Sometimes when you care about someone, you have to push them out of the plane

You have to let them leave you behind

 

Water wets the cream powder, polarized bubbles form, sequestering dry mix inside

A strange planet formed, small lifetimes commence

I smash the bubble with my spatula.

I fall in love with wild things.  I make my own pancakes.

Stripes of breakfast sunshine illuminate and cast shadows of mundane little people

You and me, we were going to install them in odd places and document--art.

Spray paint pin up stencils of John Wayne in pink stilettos, red rouge and coral lipstick--more of our art.

Sun trying not to gawk, peeking through the flicker and groan of windmill blade shadows lazily turning,

Pumping cool aquifers of tears filtered clean by the earth.

 

I can’t go with you.  Much as I would like to, I cannot share your parachute.

That would put us both in danger.

I want you to land safely because I love you.