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
Adelaide Books "like water to STONE"
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