Air circuses always put the jump last—
sometimes a harness breaks
or a gust shoves you sideways
like a liquored-up husband.
Wilbur Wright shook my hand once:
You’re awful small to do that.
Honey, I’m eighty pounds, fifty-some inches,
I’ve landed in the chill of Lake Michigan
and the hot steam of a moving train.
Anything is easier than thirteen-hour days
in a North Carolina cotton mill.
I married at twelve and had a baby. Honey,
that’s the way it was done down South.
I left Verla with my mother. At fourteen, I joined
the Johnny J. Jones Carnival in Jacksonville
and did all I ever wanted to do:
jump from a hot air balloon filled with gas.
I was The Doll Girl in white ruffles and a bonnet.
I dropped like a baby falling from a bassinet.
On the Fourth of July I stunted
with red, white, and blue chutes.
Faster than a firecracker,
I cut each set of cords, fell free
before opening the next,
and landed on a trapeze by the Stars and Stripes.
An airplane is much safer than a balloon.
I pack every inch of my parachute
flat and dry. Fold, unfold, fold again,
life or death in a thousand jumps.
I drop from a plane cruising at seventy.
Silk like a coverlet,
rope like an umbilical cord,
a parachute clasps birth, rebirth, in a bundle.
Watch gravity work,
watch me fall,
watch me
watch
before the chute snaps open.