Freer
Not metaphor
Or power
Not author
Or voice
Or character
In you or me
So much as sinew
Legs stretching
Motion
Almost wing-like
And running us
Syllabic perhaps
So toughly loved
And brought
Together word by
Fleshy word, alive
With the fear of crossing
White space
Step by terrified step
To arrive
At the wise suspense
Of foot bridge wood,
Always questioning when
Step will or word
Might break
Across the span
Of our human abyss
Imagining a snap
That is jazz
Improvising essences
Seen so clearly,
It seems easy
To become us
Back lit lovingly
With music’s intuition
Words smoothly
Fall into sound
Then read safely
Down from beyond
A spine’s breaking point
To the place where peace
And synapse conduct
Symphonies
So autobiographically
We grow refined
Constant and solid
Like a nerve’s sheathing
More viable
Instantly stable
Yet not guessing
The messages deep inside,
The finally liberating story,
The one where death
Is almost sexy…
Maybe this broken
Moment’s trance
Will reach out then, laser
Printing imaginary winds
Of love flying
Perfectly puckered
In gravity’s last kiss
—Will Hochman
____
from Freer (Pecan Grove Press 2006)