Wire Walker

— after watching Man on Wire


Like an acrobat in the spotlight
of a darkened circus ring,

or like Baryshnikov
at thirty, easy in his skin,

one graceful hand soft
on the barre—close up, black

silks billowing in the misted wind,
he’s slender & erect, smiles

as he struts the shivering cable
a quarter mile above the city.

But from below, he seems more
human, a fragile speck

against the stark immensities
of sky & doomed

towers. One step, one moment’s lapse,
as he’ll explain, above death.

Is this why he grins, why he lies
down along the braided wires,

one leg dangling over
the abyss? See how he kneels—

kneels!—and looks down
at the wondering crowd. How can

we help but love him? Even
a transit cop who hasn’t missed

much sounds awed: He was dancing.
You couldn’t call it walking. Even the lover

he’s about to betray still trembles,
decades later, remembering.

---

Susan Aizenberg’s newest collection, A Walk with Frank O’Hara and Other Poems, is forthcoming in 2024 in University of New Mexico Press’s Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry Series. She’s also author of Quiet City (BkMk) and Muse (SIUP). Her awards include the VCU/Levis Reading Prize and the Nebraska Book Award for Poetry. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in many journals and anthologies, including On the Seawall, Plume, Nine Mile, North American Review, and Blackbird.