On lazy summer afternoons, the trampoline became our ring
Transforming scrawny suburban boys into high-flying luchadores
Doing our best to perform a lionsault or shooting star press
Settling for a frog splash when our ability failed our ambitions
Until the day momentum carried my body beyond the edge
And for a brief moment I hung weightless, arms spread like wings
Suspended between the passing clouds and the cracked soil
So high that it seemed I could see all the way into the future
Where dreams of bright lights and raucous cheers gave way
To the morning commute and growing stacks of unpaid bills
And I suddenly came crashing back down to the earth below
And his challenger…hailing from Haines, Alaska (now making his home in the red dirt country of Oklahoma) standing 5’8” and weighing in at 145 lbs soaking wet, he is the Lingít Linguist, the Indigenous Auteur, the Native Wordmonger…Shaun Jex!
Shaun Jex is a poet living in the Oklahoma City area. His writing has appeared in publications like Bull, Cowboy Jamboree, and others.
