8.5.11

Slowly, the Scaffold

The air said go, so I walked. Slowly at first and stumbling
into the too-brightness of the midnight sky, like
walking out into noon. I walked slowly.
At first I didn't feel the rain crawling gently across my face
and I didn't feel the rain as it turn into screams
of violent machinations of thought and superfluous
solemnity. Solemnity isn't the word. No. And,
as if my life depended upon this one moment, this hanging
from a hundred-foot noose, as if tomorrow
didn't exist without the loose gravel upon
which I stood, I breathed out the pronouncement,
a judge in the lesser courts of life, trivialities
of utmost import. As if my life depended
on something that grew inside of me until its branches
burst from unforetold imaginations, those tiny
dancing bears and painted roses that skate across
the hallways while you sleep. I stopped. I breathed
without ceasing. And when I looked up, I saw
that it was not me, who was hanging from the noose-
She hanged, dripping rain upon my cheeks.