Down Up Down by Kate Bernadette Benedict

The underplaces, that element—

interminable downpull,

gravid with the ever-cleaving egg,

sluggishly tugging,

egg of gravity itself.

A natural law it may be

but I have wearied of it.

 

Let there be wings for once.

Let there be lift-off.

A whirlybird above the spires

or a marvelous goose,

cirrus below

and then—

weightlessness.

Buoyancy.

Abeyancy.

Light being

in a currency of light beings,

quantum

among quanta—

wavery of—

light.

 

But it’s not my place, is it?

Let there be downpull.

Siphon me home to Earth.

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Kate Bernadette Benedict, of Riverdale, New York, is the author of Earthly Use: New and Selected Poems, published in 2015. Her previous collections were Here From Away and In Company. Kate edited the erstwhile poetry journals Umbrella and Tilt-a-Whirl; the archives remain online and are linked from her home page at www.katebenedict.com.