I ride my bicycle to work, leaving earlier than usual
so I can go slow.
Everything looks normal,
the air is fresh, the copper
beech trees and
the ginkgoes
lush in their end-of-summer foliage,
the street clean from
last night's rain.
The men from Public Works
have been here lately and
patched a few holes.
Somebody must have complained,
but it wasn't me.
The only blemish
on my contentment is the strange sensation
that
somebody very like me is falling through the air
right now, close behind
me,
from a great height falling - having leapt, or been pushed -
but
anyhow no longer cradling his despair,
making light of it, arms
outstretched,
though his corduroy sleeves cannot undulate
like feathered
wings in figure eights
and he is dropping. How foolish to try
to see
him. I don't even twist to look,
the way a dream just after you have
woken
has no words for you.