if it weren’t for here
i wouldn’t be here
i couldn’t be there
or anywhere

else

among
aliens

robust in joyful denial
robust with joyful apathy

and here,
even still,
i am at risk

of floating away

like an astronaut
on a space walk

i use tether and carabiner
to travel now

out on that wire, i view the world from above, with its steel exoskeleton and hollowed-out core

it’s hard to find any natural or human anchorage

i search for a meadow, south of a ramshackle farm house, along a red dirt road, and hand over hand, i pull myself back down, back in, for a while

to be

held in

the gravity of these old elms,

of the aquifer beneath them