“Like Riding a Bike”

by Lynn Pattison

Look, it’s just ooze, now, where there used to be flow. Anyone
can see it’s a problem – and here is where
                                                              the boat slurs

sideways like my old Ford that hydroplaned across Olmstead Road
that year I first gave up on Tolstoy. Times like this

I could use a deep, well-fashioned keel, or a paddle to draw
behind as rudder. I see those streaked cliffs

we walked at Flamborough Head – stiff wind
off the North Sea – white with a calcified crust
                                                             I think of now,

as we gaze at doctors’ charts: plaque cinching artery like a napkin ring.

Things lurch off-center: cabinets slide across the floor,
another Mystery Spot beside the highway. Once,

crossing a stream bed, you stepped out onto a watery shelf,
slippery with slime, and I watched you skate
in summer. This feels like skating, or like icy parking lots
where you can fall and crack
your skull. This is the moment
                                                              before the parachute opens,

when the skydiver thinks back to lightning, or the sound
of his wife’s pale feet moving toward him

through long grass, whatever small or sweet event distracted him
as he packed his chute. Or, how it felt that summer

he fought fire up by Santa Monica – moments before the chopper,
like a Phoenix, whipped toward his panicked team through blind smoke.

                                                             Pungent smell of eucalyptus . . .

Now it’s a matter of inflating our lungs; feeling our way back
to the parking lot. You don’t notice

that everything’s cock-eyed. But from where I sit great chunks of sky
are falling away. And time.

The same streetlights sail through the air, the same cars
and mailboxes. Trellis and shrub swirl by at the edge of my eye.
                                             Movie version tornado: here is the doctor

riding by on his bicycle.                      I’ve been here before
                                                              and I know
what to do: keep turning on your toes when the trap
door opens, fix your eyes on one distant point – tiny spec
                                                              on the horizon.