Photo by Anastasia Vityukova on UnsplashLeap (for Barbara)
On the steps of the hospital
they told me you were born mad
and there was no hope.
A nurse offered me a cigarette.
I took it, ashamed of my craving.
Later I drank bitter juniper,
lay under tables and spread my legs
for the salted come
whether or not I wanted it,
wiped the wet spill from the floor.
None of this forestalled
the eventual knock on the door.
They send a man and a woman together
when they deliver bad news.
They knew it had happened after six.
A chaplain keeps watch for people who look
likely to leap from the windy cliff-path
and he’d seen her walk to the edge
before vanishing round a dark corner,
a lonely figure wrapped in a flap of coat.
He waited an hour and at six, he left.
When the man and the woman are done
and rise to go, I soar, an eagle whose talons
could rip open a coffin just to be sure.
And then the years pass and pass beneath me.
At night candles burn in my window.
I set fire to my scarf, my hair.
Jumping will save me if I fall,
but I’m not going that way.
I spread my wings of flame. I fly.
