On the sidewalks below me
The ice would lie gasping fish
Dying in the sun
Swimming feebly in the foamy pool
Among shards and slivers and shimmers
of glass
If I were to drop my glass from here.
It feels dangerously loose in my hands
Slippery and cold
Glittering in the setting sun.
The sidewalk past it is cooling slowly
Under the influence of shadows.
I want its heavy glimmering gravity
Pulled straight and free to the inevitable
hot concrete,
To see it shatter gloriously,
And the ice cubes would shudder and
flop
Suffocate, swim, and finally die
Slowly decaying into nothing.
Summer 1995
Copyright 1997 by Jennifer Kohl. All rights reserved.
