June poem of the month

Falling

She looked up

counting the first snow flurries

twirling, some crumbling

across the blackness

thinking they could be permanent

if you could only count them

before they landed

and dissolved.

They fell the way she and

her friends fall;

light-hearted and clumsy,

the earth swept away

under their feet

like ballerinas

spinning in a dream

but instead she opened her mouth

and felt the wetness press against

her lips to make them shine,

and said “there, the flakes now live

inside me” thinking she too

could learn to fall forever

and never have to

touch the earth again,

to count and count

and swallow whole

the darkness

and dance in the air

for all time.

Steven Pelcman

Foliate Oak Literary Magazine USA  April 2017