A Leap of Faith by Anthony Liccione

A Leap of Faith
by Anthony Liccione

Not only doesn't he listen well,
but he will leap out of the twelve-story building
window, and take the plunge of being airborne;

plummeting with a now knowledge of gravity,
turning about degrees in the air-
making music as a windbag along the way
with his spine facing the land.

All the while it is an eccentric fall
of six-point-seven seconds to ground,
according to my stopwatch-

the cheerio of his mouth in agape
and how the upward hair changes
from gold to flashing burgundy

as he meets the thriving sky.
Perhaps, it's the way the sun strikes,
throwing its icy red rays like if
velocity, thrill and a paintbrush

decided to come together to cause a scene-
when he suddenly turns over, less timid to time
like a skydiver knowing where at what depth
to rip the cord of his parachute.

This commotion came about when I tried
to clip his claws with nowhere to escape
he took the brightest part of the room

(as light at the end of a tunnel)
accidentally through an open window,
taking the spider plant with him on the way down.

Unaware of my bellowing above-
with the thought he passed over his numbers
and came steadfast to this ninth life,

I rushed down the flight of stairs in fright
to find him settled licking his paws of dawn dew.
He mastered this dive seven times over

that same year, enjoying his pastime urges
to jump and jump again out the apartment window,
with no worries of broken bones below.

The effort of reprise comes to me,
how he overtook one fear in fear
and found a new hobby for bird watching.

And the many windows I've passed up in life,
where chance could have changed fate-
backed with a sense of defeat,

on returning to those shadowed windows
with a resurrected courage to leap,
I found them sealed shut with the few
shattered, staring out into belated darkness.

And that could-of if I would-of surfaces
and wrenches me like a thorn in the side.

I resolved this jump a beautiful thing,
a splendor on both sides of the bough
when I go down below with my video
camera to capture pieces of my hopes,
when he lands on the pads of his feet-
where the evident of film only can tell
and staunchly strides away.