Hope for the Hopeless

Up on the trapeze— above
the parties spent with the
housepets & spilled wine on
your white shirt, the stain
of no one’s memories, above
the towels your mother draped
on the mirrors when you were
playing Virginia for the day, the
lost causes in your heart, Sid
& Nancy youth, shame that follows
room to room like a hungry
wraith & every ash you sent into
the wind like a miniature prayer.

Balance over pain to freedom—

this tunnel is longer than the
Eisenhower with no chance to
change your mind—

every Egyptian goddess who trailed
you under the covers & suicide
lovers cannot hold you on your
soles, it’s you against the current
of sadness, electrical & tall in the sky
as a burning building, the twin towers
you crawled through the window
into to ease your ache & feel the
world crying.

No one can sail into this with you,
support your toes on twine & don’t
leap—

there is more than lost heart-
possessions, more than landfills of
grief & the sunburns of coming
unstrung biannually. This is the
sky-fall of trust in life, a power trip
for willpower—

please don’t leap.