STEPPING OUT                                                                                            

I stand on the edge and lean right out

towards the light, the face of one, of

so much more than someone, just met;

won’t forget the tingling of my skin, the

smell of hers, won’t let this slip, this chance to

be unequivocal, say what must be said,

do what must be done – as the

Earth is bound to round the sun.

 

Still on the edge my head tips forward;

I wait to re-consider my resolve, knowing

that, if I do step out into air, my

daring may amount to nought, a

crisis is on one side of the coin that

must be flipped. Will I shake on that bet?

Will I play roulette or take the view that

the odds are worse than red or black?

 

But deep inside I know there’s no choice;

a voice calls me on and I would not be

gone from this place in any other way.

I may depart empty-handed but

none can say I walked away, left the field.

I am ready and will end the day forever

changed. So I re-arrange my feet, prepare to

give all to gravity, one small step but a life’s leap…

 

then I fall, more slowly than I’d thought, though

how may I know, both eyes closed? There’s a

collage in my head, I see somehow, of

reds and greens, great masters’ scenes, celebrations of

decisions made. A flight of fancy? Yes, but

more than that: I soar above my store of

nothings, my full baggage of inconsequentials

left behind, liberated from my non-essentials,

stripped of all that bubble wrap, I float and,

like a leaf whose time has come to

break away and gently drop, I brush the ground

right on the spot, bump just once and then.…

 

stop…my upper lip has landed safely,

softly on her lower one, which quivers just a

little, sending shivers down my back but no

disconnection. I sense that mine may rest on

hers for a while but can’t be sure, for I

feel (and she does too) that our lips have

minds of their own: my will has nothing to say;

hers has laid down to rest and said “Go

play with your friends, wake me in the morning.”

Oh, joy! Our mouths explore a corner of this

dazzling world, the sweetest kind of human touch –

and really not so hard to find, after all, if

you learn to step off lovers’ cliffs.