Well, he’d invited him to the party.
So him disinviting himself made me
first choice to dance through the fairy-light arch.
The hall on the hill, a whole room of cheese,
waited, wine servers who liked praying—
but the stations came first. The new station,
the knocked-down station, the flood-risk area,
the footbridge. The flash of pink at my feet:
the queer and living head of a person
poised to jump. The stream of traffic. The pool
of police officers. Jeering, fleering.
Doing their job. To save a disliked life.
Badly. At my feet: a forehead, the flash
of glasses, knitwear. Like one of my friends.
Someone mistaken for someone louder.
Vivid. Someone woke. A reader. Avid.
Miles away, the hill. They’ll be decorating.
I’ll dance later, I will—what can I—do—
Nothing. Prayer.
As if a terrible form
could build itself from light, in the lived sky,
rearrange the blue, descending. And so
the jump, when it happens—is happening—
in slow motion—happened—grace, or parkour.
The police gape, freeze, disperse. I cross the road
to question them; they’re gone. The pink-haired one,
also startled, gone. I alone look back.