Trapeze (audio only)

See how the first dark takes the city in its arms 
and carries it into what yesterday we called the future. 

O, the dying are such acrobats. 
Here you must take a boat from one day to the next, 

or clutch the girders of the bridge, hand over hand. 
But they are sailing like a pendulum between eternity and evening, 

diving, recovering, balancing the air. 
Who can tell at this hour seabirds from starlings, 

wind from revolving doors or currents off the river. 
Some are as children on swings pumping higher and higher. 

Don't call them back, don't call them in for supper. 
See, they leave scuff marks like jet trails on the sky.

From Trapeze by Deborah Digges. Copyright © 2004 by Deborah Digges. Reprinted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.