Is it just one accident strung to another, body flung from courtside
ledge, knees shredded. Body half butterfly three quarters gravel.
Flipped downhill because front braked, body tumbled like dominos.
Chin ricocheted off the board when the instructor said wait, too late
above deep-end blue. Too late understood the relation of fingers
to blade, two tip pads red between onions. Why did I step to one side
of my body as if we weren’t the same? Falling again. All the mistakes
on wheels, tractor too fast, vanful of campers slow-motioned into
a tree when the road curved left. When did I become a spook radio,
tuned to far away? From this body God or a billion years gave me,
I don't know why I say goodbye. So let us praise the impact, hard
fact of velocity plus mass, bless the aqueduct of bloodstream. From
the ceiling sailing, the ladder sideways, body clamped in springs
of gravity. Head full of blood arcing towards concrete, & dark.
DAN ALTER is the author of two collections of poetry: My Little Book of Exiles (Eyewear, 2002) winner of the Cowan Poetry Prize, and Hills Full of Holes (Fernwood, 2025). He is also the translator of Take a Breath, You’re Getting Excited (Ben Yehuda, 2024), from the Hebrew of Yakir Ben-Moshe. He works at the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at UC Berkeley.
