Highwire

I stork a pose, afloat paper-edge up
on a steel of line of hair that tunnels towards you.
Somewhere deep behind trembles the past,
a candle-flicker of hopscotch and that bullying.

The chill chasm sounds its bitter echoes.
I could be dead on this track, if you could see me.
Perhaps your chalk remembers my soft foot?
My mass depresses the hard wire like a bow-string.

Iron, zinc, carbon,
the cold twisted tendons,
tentacles pasta-pulled, suckled
from safety to destination.

This is a void of one dimension,
a thread curling around a black hole,
a screaming swift, a quantum scalpel groove
slicing towards an event horizon.

Somewhere deep behind trembles the past.
A birthday candle blinks and its ghost smells of our inactions.
Somewhere ahead the line ends, but I cannot find it.

The line snaps and I fall.
I feel no terror, no blame to sanction.
You were my net
and you are gone.

© Mark Sheeky. Permission is required for reproduction.