by Amelia Martens
And ask me to put a Christmas pompom in your hair
along with a maroon bow to hold your bun in place.
There is all of breakfast and night across your face
when we leave the house; when we cross the street
your sister wants to talk about gravity
and I am doing math involving trajectory:
if two daughters and their mother step off
this curb now, will they arrive on the other side
before that blue pick-up truck explodes
their bodies in clean clothes and homework?
Why don’t we fall off the surface of the Earth
as our planet spins through space, why don’t
we feel the spin, here on this plate? I make
metaphors with my free hand and conduct
two half conversations at once, without
success. We cross another street and don’t
die and yet, I always feel the sunshine
as a potential threat, my body
your bodies, always under the weight:
a certain level of force exerted to hold us
to the ground, as we are more
dangerous in our space.
I let go your hand, and you run
up the school steps, free radicals.
I turn home, thinking of ice animals
floating off the poles at each end of this ball.
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