The Law of Falling Bodies

       how everything turns away / Quite leisurely from the disaster
       —W. H. Auden, “Musée des Beaux Arts”

It takes seconds to drown, but we’re not
there yet. First count how many seconds 
to blind my eyes, wrenched hydrants 
in the hay in the barn. Hundreds. More 
before wrecking our cake and our endless 
electric slide, thousands the night before 
Thanksgiving Day, awaiting close family
exchanges to end me like a pawn. 
You know what Galileo said, how objects 
fall the same in a vacuum. True whether 
you believe in vacuums, or turn away 
to pick up after the dog or to replace 
baking soda in the fridge when it’s old 
and no one is grateful. If you want to talk 
about drowning, let’s root through 
the false cold air when the light for
the door flicks on. Here an expired
purchase, there another. Do you see us
flailing in white, far too young? Here 
whether you see it or not, splashing
like perishable milk in a drain.

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