Up here…

A short poem for July by Mike Liddy

[New City Magazine – July 2021, page 23]

Holding on to this trapeze
doesn’t get any easier
As the years swing past
Casting parabolas in the empty air.

All that’s left now is the failing to hold on and the
Nagging doubt over whether there’s a safety net worth its name.

We mock gravity with such regularity.
But know too that
flying is for the birds.

Up here there are no blank canvasses to play with anymore and
From up here the sparse audience may as well be faces
Painted on.
Those memories of flesh turned upwards
All aglow with starlit wonder,
are now as doubtful as
that safety net.
It’s the anticipation of the inevitable fall that is always the first fatal blow.

Now the downward swing seems more real than the upward climb past the point of no return.