are the worst. The sky streaks of fiery burn
only how painters wish it could be. All I do is wait
for the wind to stop; I’m a naked parasail
tugged by an umbilical cord to nowhere. An altitude
between a bird’s and an angel’s; more ghost
than cloud, out of reach from the prying
hands of earth. Nothing can touch me
so nothing can hurt me, except my yearning
to be touched. If only I could stop being
afraid the world is out to bruise me, it wouldn’t hurt
to wake. Aching under my own gravity, the slap colder than
the dreams where I kill myself, where I kill others, or
the sobs of an infant ripped from heaven.
Nothing now but gas and dust learning slowly
how to walk. To my angel above—
if you’d let me choose,
I’d never land.