In the failing shadow of a day whose hours have turned like leaves <br />In slow spirals of green, red and gold <br />A boy grows, longer with each shadow, taller as the streetlights see him <br />Smiling at his limbs because they are familiar friends, if sometimes rebellious <br />Still they carry him, as they do now <br />In sublime arcs, orbiting a particularly dark grain of tar <br />In the street façade, winding his heart on his long legs <br />Like the leopard springs of a grandfather clock, his body cocked <br />Tense, terse preparation for flight <br />His legs stop <br />But only briefly, as the crossbow bolt of his youth <br />Strains, tightens on the bicycle pegs <br />His shoulders whipping together as if becoming wings <br />His eyes on the splintering plywood, hastily recovered <br />From a Walmart shipping dock for reincarnation on cinder blocks <br />Thrilling to new life, slinging ageless taunts <br />The dubious, undeniable challenge of youth shouting <br />Like curiosity’s mistress <br />The child’s metabolic race for age beckons in a semblance <br />Of promise, a catharsis. <br />Growth learns by experience <br />Thus the resemblance of the boy’s smile to a sundial <br />Leg pumping bike pedal tribal rhythm <br />The primal up and down whistle <br />Wisdom calls like breath through bright teeth <br />The promise of flight as black rubber grins <br />From the innocent silver of rims <br />Starining against the mothering embrace of the chapped lip <br />Edge of the ramp, <br />Leaping from the precipice, and then….<br /><br />Zachary Kluckman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/event-horizon-3/
