They said the net
would catch me
if I fell, they said
there was
no possibility
of death, they said
the rope was taut
enough
and the ground soft.

They said all this,
and I fell;
a whistling in my eardrums,
a needle
through unforgiving
gravity. I fell
with grace,
they said
in the tabloids later.

I fell like a
drunk gymnast
from a narrow beam,
I fell and
broke the line,
snapped the net,
dragging its feeble threads
behind me,

smack
into hard ground.

Featured image by Beth Scupham. Available on Flickr under Creative Commons license 2.0