Eighteen Months, Two Stories Up
The first thing I remember is the way
my tiny toddler heels felt on the inch
of balcony that stuck out past the grate
my hands were holding onto, fingers clenched
around the wrought iron bars beside my head.
I don't remember climbing out at all,
just being there. If anybody said
anything to me, I don't recall.
In memory, I cannot even see
the thing I'm after, just the vague gray ghost
of sidewalk down below, somewhere a tree.
This is the point on which there is the most
contention in the telling. When my Mom
would tell it, she swore it was my bottle.
My brother, who was four then, says she's wrong,
he says it was his Tony Tiger pillow.
But I don't know, my memory doesn't know –
it only holds that moment on the edge
of letting go, and even letting go
itself is gone. Just wrought iron, heels, and ledge.
I know I jumped, but only from the lore.
I don't remember falling, though they say
that falling is a feeling toddlers love.
You'd think I would remember that—the way
a body thrills at rushing through the air;
or the impact trauma, the cold foreclosure
of the fall; or that complex moment where
ecstatic freedom meets the end of pleasure.
