The Leap

by Quincy R. Lehr

It’s not the fall that acrophobics fear,
the fatal inattention, as the body
accelerates, and distant crawling figures
whirring on the ground gain features, voice,
reflex cacophonies of screams and honking
as the concrete of the street approaches.

They fear the jump itself, the narrow ledge
bordering a moist and chilly sky,
the moment when a day like any other
picks up speed and plunges into space
that’s always there, in lungs and hair and eyes,
but only now regarded for itself,

beyond immense, its endless grandeur felt
despite its invisibility, the shape
of fronts that spread across the continent
in forms that only metaphor reveals
in lines and arrows on a map. Out there,
the sky is palpable; the gusts are strong.

The realization gives but little comfort
until, despite the snap of wind, they sense
their feet against the ground again, the air
the merest pockets in the curving arches
between the toes that dig into their socks
and heels that swivel, testing what’s below.