I snap awake, violet flowers everywhere here
where enveloping the envelope, sweet antelope
breathlessly leaping, sweet fields greened,
rain fresh in open nostrils, this a sudden
defining defiance
when leaving mean time behind blossoms
through nightfall like red wine. In childhood,
fantasizing the superheroic airborne, a friend
and I leapt from high branches, dreams of her
beauty, Marvel's avenging Black Widows, a loving
magnolia shivering as we sprung,
bath towels our capes. Who cared if bruising
became the small cost of returning to everywhere,
the flying momentary, our mothers gasping
as they pinched-open window curtains, worries
we would hurt ourselves? Look,
we were in control, magnificent humans both
cushioned, couched by life itself, those summers
so lusty with sweat the act of leaping free
cleansed our bodies,
sweet azure our takeoff coats. Never forget how.
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