meeting in high plaCes Poetry

For J.—

Karly Jacklin MEETING IN HIGH PLACES

I am shaking on the top landing of the fire escape, and it is the kind of fear you feel exclusively inside of your palms.

It is the nail-bitten morning after a bad dream, blood pooling in ragged cuticles. It is the passive suicide of slipping and falling. It is me, desperate enough to meet you again by accident. It is me, too nervous to do it on purpose.

One foot hangs off & I could do it. A sick ode to love/ hurt/want and nothing would be spared from the horror in process—

One foot returned to the platform. The blue city below humming the song of another limbic system, this failure to die living entirely on the eyes of a stranger who only happens to look up.

you, his eyes say. The imperfect polished fingernail on the hand of a woman I used to know, somewhere, and

for a moment, a single fragmented second, I see you. I hold the rail. He holds a joint. I see you.

I see you.