The Fool

I’d follow my instincts if I had any.

How do we face the clifftop 

with sheer expanse ahead of us? 

The late spring sky luxuriates 

over the coast & I’m almost dizzy.

The scale feels wrong. 

Gold everywhere you look.

I point out the toy-towns waking up, 

the men that would surely break 

my heart opening their windows.

When I fell onto these rocks as a teen

yielding to a firm man’s fists 

pinning me to the ground

we wondered if I were dead.

Driving to the beach was radiant 

& knife-sharp. 

Nothing could stop us, 

the sea possibility itself. 

Up high I tried to catch 

the sun’s lick on the water.

Rockpool mirrors tricking

my body into shards.

I feel that fall 

in my body daily 

& imagine

with a mere inversion 

the story ending differently:

the air ambulance not making it in time,

my spine shuffled into pieces,

the sea lobbing me over the continental shelf.

Ammonites litter that beach 

like a family’s leftovers.