In one of our stream-of-consciousness writing exercises, Rubit wrote: “a dark night only brightened by the streetlights.” I copied her poetic line in my notebook and let my mentee’s words inspire my own poem.
“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?
The world would split open”
—Muriel Rukeyser
I saw her jump not with my own eyes
as if experiencing a dream without blood or sound
two orange cones and a strip of yellow police tape
did little to deter a growing crowd
that kept staring
up at the ledge of the hotel
a tourist’s camera phone focused on
a single white sheet poorly
cocooning a body
melting onto the concrete
before that,
a blue-and-white sneaker
plummeted through the air,
somehow escaping its owner’s flailing feet,
in seconds, it
flipped over on the sidewalk
open mouths like tiny wounds
gasped,
unable to fathom any explanation
I tried to tell myself in a poem:
she imagined herself
splitting open the world,
leaving behind
a dark night only brightened by the streetlights
but words are only words
you don’t use them in mid-air
you don’t use them with hands reaching
you don’t use them to break tongue and bone
I tried anyway to
spin her into a silky poem
where she could
molt, harden, reassemble,
force dead cells to self-destruct,
digest and disintegrate spare parts,
stun this small world when she decides
once again
to release into the air,
hungry and unforgiving