Severance

The world seems solid enough. 

Teacups shatter

bones break, 

and the girl who just jumped from her

tenth story window begs the Hilling Avenue

concrete to offer a split second

miracle before she-- 

It seems solid enough, the world.

But under the tunnels that run to Columbus Circle

gray slate and mantles shift, 

so that we're always moving up and down, 

and there are always spaces in between. 

She says, "If you jump at just the right moment, you'll fall 

through the gaps in it all and end up

on the other side." 

We all seem connected enough. 

A baby cries in the North Side of town, 

while an East End mother feels in 

in her stomach. 

And the girl you love more than anything

in this world calls you just as you're thinking

about how she bites her lower lip after she kisses you 

goodbye.

She says, "I just called to say good-bye." 

We're connect enough, it seems. 

Tiny gossamer chain-links extending from our ears

and stretching over topography. From a distance

it looks like cracks in white porcelain. 

She says, "I will always be with you. We are the thing that stars

are made of, you and I." 

But tonight you shake at the lonely end 

of a telephone wire, 

of a cell phone signal, 

of a soup can attached to string.

Hello?

Hello?

Pleading with the empty window on the tenth story

and waiting for illumination

a space, 

an opening, 

a pinhole, 

anything to let the light through. 

You and her 

were what lovers were made of. 

She was the electricity and you were

the contact wire. 

Together you were strung out Christmas bulbs, 

blink 

blink

blinking conversations, holding one another

and burning through dawn. 

She says, "Let's hold on to all of this." 

But tonight you grasp at the air and come up 

empty. You wonder if you'll forget her

voice or the way that she let her hand lay,

heavy on your chest, while she dreamed

of stars, porcelain teacups, babies wailing, 

and trains

rushing in and out of Columbus Circle.

You wonder if you've finally had enough. 

You wonder if there are chasms too deep 

for light to kiss. 

You think that maybe this Hades exists in you and you 

think of all the shifting and the spaces and how the ground

is crumbling beneath your shoes.

You wonder if you're enough. 

And you hope

that when the shoe finally drops, 

that when the cards finally fall, 

that when the elevator cable finally breaks

in a way you always knew it would break, 

you hope--

that you can jump at just the right moment

to be in the air at impact.