ALMOST FLYING
after Amichai
If, just once, we could’ve made
a flying machine, or at least
a winged creature of some kind,
gilded light as a kite over that
dark spine of mountain beyond
our bedroom window or even
floated like shadowy zeppelins
along our candlelit walls … But
whenever we tried we fell deeper
into the black hole of our bodies,
became spiders, beetles, worms,
rootbound things burrowing
inside the belly of earth, hungry.
No, even our best design—the one
we kept coming back to—looked
more like a grasshopper than
a bird. Still, for almost an hour,
we could be happy like that, bounc-
ing from shoot to shoot, my thigh
rubbing madly against yours, now
and then a sound rising, a high note
made of friction, a cricket-like song.
—from Rattle #13, Summer 2000
Tribute to Soldier Poets
__________
R.G. Cantalupo: “I’m a full-time writer these days. I seem to have more desire now than ever, and am getting younger every day.”
