Collision

Life seems like a series of collisions.

Pigeon with window.

Dish with floor.

Random molecules

Bouncing in some crazy

Spastic dance

Each action

Sets off a chain

Of  blind consequences.

I study the options

For the space of a breath

Which is all the time

We ever have

To decide.

A muddy patch of yard

A ladder untied

A foot that spins

Propels a body into space

For a tiny eternity

And ends with  bonecrunching darkness.

What if? What if?

What if the ground had been dry?

Or the ladder tied?

Or the foot steady?

Or what if he could suddenly fly

Like those dreams you have sometimes

Where your stomach lurches in fear

Then leaps with delight.

That space between moments

When he chose to lift his foot

Knowing the ladder

And not knowing the ground

In that time

He could not see

The web of possibilities

The weight of tears

The burden of pain.

He only knew the ladder

And chose to hope

That he could slip past

While fate was looking the other way

Maybe smoking a cigarette.

But then the randomness becomes

Like that picture of an old woman

And a young lady

The crooked nose of one becoming the

Smooth cheek of the other.

Nothing has changed but the focus

Of your eyes

And yet everything is different.

The sound of the fall

By chance was heard

By a paramedic

Who had an ambulance.

And he lives

By chance.

By chance?

They try to put him together

Like a warped jigsaw puzzle

And in the end

They give up.

But then

By chance

The bones are straight.

By chance

Oh God

Sometimes I feel like the marble

In some cosmic game

Smacked by the cats eye

Out of the circle

Spinning.

But then

By chance

I end up in your arms

And maybe not by chance.

                                                            Janna O’Donnell

                                                            copyright 2006