It is a crusty morning in late April
and we are rectangular around the carpet
fuzzed over and dry.
Eyelids flicker, erratic jitters pushing up,
staring down, ahead, out.
Woven threads that swirl like faded marble
eighty feet below call out in
piano footsteps
for the plummet of a pitching-forward,
the huh-up of the hips, the swaying of the chest,
the slide, the dive.
A bell rings in the blurry distance.
Raisin-tongued and cloudy-eyed
I lean, over the flower-ornamented railing,
over the classmates, steady breathing,
over the clang and fade,
into the pattern and let myself fall.