The Rider

While this did come out of an old fragment in an old notebook, there’s also no way around it:  this is a new poem.

Ride a motorcycle
out of a twenty story window
and plummet to the ground below — 
that’s the way to go;
so much

implied backstory, so much 
obvious preparation. Those strangers
unable to mourn such a whacked-out demise
would nonetheless be talking about it
for days,

and those who loved the Rider
would wonder in their sorrow
if indeed this was the best way
to go, if this
was indeed

the obvious final arc
for someone
following their bliss
to its logical
conclusion.

Every death by diving from on high
makes at least one person wonder:
what if they had landed on someone?
Someone else always wonders,
what if they had found themselves able to fly?

Would they have changed their mind?
Imagine putting in
all that work
only to learn
that you are Icarus.

Imagine watching the bike
fall away from under you as you rise, hover,
begin to consider your options,
to imagine what those options
could possibly be.