by Joseph Stanton
We go out on these limbs,
bent and twisted turns of phrase,
fearful that we might fall
or be suspended in our animation—
like the cartoon branch that keeps Bugs Bunny in mid–air
while Elmer, saw in hand, and the rest of the world
fall impossibly away;
but—even when the world falls away—
the writing must go on, somehow,
a bridge we build in front of us, and behind,
one step at a time.
