They said it was not possible. Said
it’ll take three to grapple up a double
night-night. How can I be behind you
when you’re behind me & so busy?
Stinkin’ thinkin’ we said & we thought.
Everything is angles & engineering.
We’re in the same ring on this issue,
& at six fifteen am, anything’s possible.
We stretch & pummel. We trip & slip.
Eureka! The key! It’s gravity. Switch it
off. So my neck, your shoulder, all heads
tucking in crooks of elbows – where I end
you begin to choke. The asphyx is in.
This is what people want. Impossible
combat, vicarious adrenaline, bodies
& sweat & snacks & murderous intent
from chin to chest until blood don’t flow
to the sea or the brain or the world rains red.
We’re waltzing in the puddle we made.
Our eyes flipping like slot machines.
The red in our faces burns copper blue.
Forearms are five snakes, maybe six.
Which one of us is ouroboros? Oh, both!
Everyone smells like gently burning toast.
This is only about love, not about falling.
We float near rafters, dodging scoreboards.
Love knows nil about gravity, so no
one shall spill from our full spirit embrace.
An open window pulls us all toward sunrise.
The future is so bright, we’ll clench our eyes.
You & I & we are sleepy, so very sleepy.
Our waltz counts one two three, forever.
JR Walsh teaches creative writing at SUNY Oswego. He is the Online Editor for The Citron Review. His writing is in beloved publications such as The Greensboro Review, New World Writing, Switch, Flash the Court, The Hong Kong Review, FRiGG, Bull, HAD, Fractured Literary, Does it Have Pockets?, Taco Bell Quarterly, and Esquire. More: itsjrwalsh.com.
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