The Great Leap (Another Edit)

Some of these lines were pissing me off...

The Great Leap


You and I reach that daunting ledge,
teeter on tiptoe, sway and feel
breathless. I am wearing a sack, the sagging
blue nightgown, and the most I remember on you
is the brown jacket--with the long broken
zipper, the massive bleach stain, and the sweat 
of Gillette and dampness. We collect ourselves 
in a lopsided grapple between a beach 
ball and a lawnmower. We create
flight, safe inside, trapped in noise, our music--
the baby screaming, the gentle hush, the loud
chance of discovery--a drum beat so solid
its security is our level ground.
This is more physical than phone chats.
It transcends denim, Tuesday panties, and
finger fulls of follicles. While we try to complete
need, anticipation swims around us, moving in 
and out of me in waves. I hope that you devour 
the slippery pieces of my hesitation. I hope we
stroke in the atom juice of this basic joy. Smallest
particles of animalism and awkwardness
lined neatly out in front of us and defined.  


But right before we take that plunge
off the ledge we built ourselves
your darkness blocks my view again.


And I try to see where this leap will take us
but you become a wall. You reach around me
and smother my face into your chest.
You choke off what's left of the round puffs
of my breath without saying anything. 
So unlike you silence, 
like a fit too large for you. You live 
to yell. That time at school you yelled,
your brother was dating that pedophile. Christ, 
he was sixteen and she was eighteen
and I did not know you did not know
her age. I told you there's no need to scream
but you have a way, a loud and echoing way 
of yelling your fear into the face of others. 
He is your little brother and your severity 
is laced with all the trimmings of fear. Saddled,
hidden under your drive to protect. You hate to yell
at faces you have come to like, you just have to yell
it all, yell out every nerve because fear bursts out too
fast, too hard. It bangs up every door and moves in great
big, barking metaphors and vocal rollercoasters. I feel
your silent shaking, on this floor, another great 
yell fumbling out, crying out against our only trembling.

Our nerves, so unlike steel, but more like bending, cracking,
plastic and we fumble to hold each other, to never break. 
Perhaps what I see in you isn't darkness, perhaps a shadow
hiding light, perhaps a force field. I bet that crevice below us 
is filled with some unwitting knowledge, some creature
hiding in the jagged cracks, growling, waiting
to turn us against each other, to change us and move us
to some level far beyond the walkthrough. And it becomes
too loud, our music, that shadow or darkness or whatever it is
in you, we, wrapped and shivering, run from that prophetic
ledge, that long and sinking darkness to agree 
that romps on basement floors are best left
for nights not mid-November, not meant 
for freezing in the dark, not knowing 
what lies there in front or below us.