It’s been a long time coming,
it’s not up for debate.
You’ve been a hollowed-out apple,
though you’re standing up straight.
It’s later than you think,
and we’re not going to wait
if you continue to tell us,
if you continue to tell us
“The Universe is going to catch you.”
It was fine until you fell off the face of the Earth,
‘cause we would call you at home and
no one picked up the phone.
We were worried that you’d fallen in the river, or worse,
but then you sent us back a letter,
it said in capital letters,
“THE UNIVERSE IS GOING TO CATCH YOU.”
Come back inside
to this house,
to your home
made of steel-structured styrofoam,
nobody’s out there.
But someone is singing you back to your birthplace.
That voice is the same voice you heard
on the same night that
everything glowed,
took you into the air,
and the arms of the universe
kept you from falling.
But after that happened,
those arms did not come back.
So when you leapt up and
nobody caught you,
your neck broke.
