A Farther Kite

     He placed it in my hand.
     His gaze was a precipice.
     Then my eyes climbed farther along.
     The taut line sang its one note.
     The clouds turned the trees,
     a black spiraling.
     The starlings, shrill,
     scattered within me.
     Nothing--not even
     my towering 
     bright blue speck--
     could keep from moving. 
     I felt the give, 
     the string biting its red 
     ring around my finger. 
     Head craning back, 
     I understood: he expects me 
     to hold up the sky.
     With one hand.
     His hand envelops my right shoulder, 
     the thumb idly stroking 
     the bow of my nape, 
     again, again. 
     Who does he think he is? 
     Who does he think I am?


     Steven Ratiner
 	


      *         *          *


     about the poem:

     "This poem belongs to a larger project, 33 Kites, involving art 
     by Marty Cain and my writing. Drawings were inspired by new poems 
     and vice versa--the images of our separate vocabularies being 
     complementary though not identical. I construct my kites out of bits 
     of perceptual experience and the echoes of memory--each, in its own way, 
     attempting to stretch or break the bonds of an emotional gravity. Some 
     are whimsical and others have more of a political or emotional edge."



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