Peering over 

the cliff’s spinning edge,

wet bells in my ears ring a pellucid blue.

 

You squeeze my hand as if for the last time,

and tell me since you quit smoking

the adrenaline of jumping keeps you high.

 

My eyes –POP– 

are dangling from their sockets,

as your scream follows you underwater. 

 

Like weights, my eyeballs jerk me over, too,

and my body flails behind them,

like a flaccid flag thwap thwap thwapping in the wind.

 

And without a pole to ground me, 

my fingers and toes grasp at gasping air,

exhaled from my own contracting lungs.

 

The pink balloons squeal and hisssssssssssss, 

craving re-inflation, but the sweet oxygen 

from these Vermont trees can’t be caged.

 

I flounder in this purgatory —

but ironically my habitual thoughts of death 

have expired with my breath. 

 

I’m finally flying!

Then, the saggy pink balloons burst with air,

the pure liquid spanks my skin, blue burns on my thighs — 

 

Heaven tingles in my hands.