Saints
       

The benefit of being stone is that time
slows. Take the saints on church tops,
eternal contemplation of a jump. They
look down on the tourists, on me, the occupants
of Dante's First Level. The saints feel superior
for their height and their depth—
the Seventh Circle is for them, the eternal
wood of suicides. The saints think for centuries,
first of the step, then of the fall,
then of the scattering of stone.
They wonder if angels fell
with the speed of gravity or if they
fell like seeds. They wonder if angels
would scatter, if angels have atoms,
if angels are liquid, if angels feel at home
above the Ninth Level. They wonder if they can aim,
could land on me, could watch me scatter and seep
through to Styx to be washed up among the pagans.
They wonder if the street will stop their fall.
They hope the momentum will carry them far,
scatter them wide, stir enough dust into the wind
become breath, never landing.

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Copyright © 2018 Danielle Hanson All rights reserved
from Fraying Edge of Sky
Codhill Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission