I slipped on a shard of black ice
and fell up and up and up.
My white shirt joined a group
of permanent press clouds,
but I continued my skyward free fall
my molecules moving farther apart
just as the atmosphere thinned
and slipped away into the void.
Coming out of a coffee break daydream
gravity got back to work
and I felt it assert its authority
over my earthly form.
Gravity let me down gently though.
It acknowledged circumstances were not my fault.
It pulled together twenty trillion raindrops
to form a small ellipse to soften my impact.
I splashed water into instant evaporation
and left a full body impression in damp clay.
copyright © 2018 Kenneth P. Gurney
