Fear of Falling


Gargoyle eyes make you feel followed
(at night, in the rain). It's a case of the grin
without the cat wheeling across the canyons of your mind,
clattering with big ideas; then, settling
with an an ambiguous purr inside the chambers of your heart.

So we trudge on, he between my knees,
but nothing prepares us for the eroticism
of someone else's pain. Since childhood
I've imagined this meeting: It takes everything I've got
to resist the pull of the saint's arrows
and the thin red stream.

I feel my grip tighten on your leash.
There’s a yellow brick road around here somewhere.
We'll follow each other like traffic to the exit ramp for Eden.

Copyright © 2003 Cheryl Snell