The Vault
       

Kingsolver tells young writers to stop smoking
and obey the posted speed limit—to stay alive
long enough to become wise. Here's more advice, kids:
Don't grab the rail of an open stairwell from a flight
four stories high, bend your knees low, then spring
to hurl your young body over that rail and the floor

far below, as if you were an arboreal gibbon
sailing routinely from tree to tree, out of curiosity
and a marginal confidence that you'll make it
over the next rail and onto that flight's flat landing.
The fact I made it is beside the point. I still flinch
at the memory of the world in which I didn't.

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Copyright © 2022 Dan Albergotti All rights reserved
from River Styx
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission