Dragons Tooth

Better to be a paper weight than a paper plane.

They call it Dragon’s Tooth because it feels

for all the world like the head of a pin.

I don’t dare tip forward for a better

view of miniature fields below for

fear of losing balance. Though I’m sitting

on my bum. For the moment I’d rather

be heavy. Better to be a paper weight than a paper plane. Yet wasn’t I

grasping for and into the dark not-being just twenty years

ago? Isn’t that sentiment so far back that I couldn’t,

just out of curiosity, fling shoulders a bit

further forward than absolutely wise?

Would the thrust transform curiosity to zeal on

the order of joy and reflexive

expansion of wings as I sped to

ground?

If I didn’t scream, clinging for muddled

regret plunging ever forward, then where

would I be? Finally done with all

this?

Clutching spiny rock with each limited

palm, head over spine, feet dissolve into

myriad sub-atomic particles.

A sour, sore, red-orange freeze radiates

from soles to calves to knees. Reaching hamstrings,

I’m weak. Indeed this could be the end but fallow cells abruptly assert motive.

Is this fear of death or desire to live?

And why does my suicide train always end at 

this station?

Cold water on my cheeks.

I’ve been crying. 

The nine year-old girl to my left senses my grief. 

Oh, girls.

Why are we saddled with empathy? More tears and now snot.

Why us?

As perception narrows, emotion falls

outside the frame. Discourse off. 

This perch is precarious. Hips 

to air, I crab-walk the way to wider rock.