Ken Craft

Gravity

Done sweeping leaves from shingles, his foot finds
the top rung of the ladder & it slides. He twists, falls

headfirst from the roof’s lip, instinct stretching arms
earthward in submission to the god that would

reclaim him. One airy sip of amnesia & he feels
the pain of his worship, tries to speak, dizziness & nausea

squeezing the coil of his being. The grainy Zapruder
of that slip replays in & out like bone smoke from a snuffed

candle. Tendrils of youth rise & drift toward the strange—
bellied Hotei laughing on his grandmother’s mantle.

The odor of talc & wrinkles in his great aunt’s apartment.
The wash of white clamshells closing from the ceiling

above the top bunk in a bedroom shared with two brothers.
At the ER, under a roof of blue scrubs, his eyes blink open.

The blue clouds to white halogen clams. Screeching seagulls
lifting & dropping them. The final crack of light against the beach.

 

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Ken Craft teaches at York County Community College in Maine. His poetry has appeared in The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor, The Pedestal, Spillway, and Pushcart Prize XLIX: Best of the Small Presses (2025 Edition). He is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Reincarnation & Other Stimulants, and maintains a blog on reading, writing, and poetry at kencraftauthor.com.