Trapeze by Deborah Diggs

Hello Poets,
This dark and captivating poem by the late Deborah Diggs paints a cloudy picture one is not likely to forget, of life at the edge and everything timelessly flying by.
Best,
Sam


Trapeze

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 a 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 from eternity to 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.

by Deborah Diggs, from Trapeze, 2005