Skateboarder

I was just eighteen

When the first fit

Threw me from my board,

And ever since my life has been

           An afterlife,

Adrift in a regimen

year after damaged year,

Slow walker over a ground

           Of trap doors

The slowness somehow kept

From opening, till now,

           And now I’m falling,

And the thing is

I’m alive again the way

           I was before

When I was beautiful

At just that moment when

The skateboard hangs, suspended,

Perpendicular above the ramp,

And somehow I’m riding it,

           Nearly parallel

To the ground, right foot

At the low end of the board,

           Left foot at the top,

Torso tipped forward,

Arm flung out for the shifting

           Momentary

Balance as I ride

The upsweep of the invisible

           Wave that

Holds me holding it

Right here, right now,

           Where it neither

Builds nor breaks.