Remote

The last line of this poem refers to the title of a chapbook by Paul Gagnon, “The Darkness Is Habitable.”

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The child at the top
of the cellar stairs
is still ready to fall into the dark.
You haven’t got your arms up to catch me
and I’m too large
to make a safe landing on my own.

I wonder:
did you think I’d be
in love with you forever,
even after you let me fall?
Is it remotely possible
that you believe I am

that easy to please?
I wanted a family. I got a disease.
There had to come a time
when I chose health instead of you.
(You stare at me. Nothing
can make me feel different.)

There was a time
when I would have
allowed myself to die for you.
There was a time
when it would have been worth it
to hit every stair all the way down.

It is not remotely possible
that I will not walk away now,
once I learn to stand on unschooled feet.
The way home is not down the stairs.
I’m going up and over,
out and through, away instead.

The face of things will be the same.
We’ll talk. We’ll be cordial.
We’ll even snuggle up from
time to time;
but we’ll never be
one blood again.

This is the nature of
remote possibility.
The toddler flies
when the stairs rot through.
Darkness can become habitable,
if never safe.