Shall I call you Shiva? I know your pleasures:
taking down an overpass, toppling a crane. You
downed a space shuttle for its presumption. Flick
at people as we scuttle. You pulled me down once
to test my brittle frame. You win. My bones are balsa
and they bend only a little. It was just a prank; your attention
really elsewhere. Class bully, you are picking on another nerd
whose limbs stiffen like drying plaster. The rest
is air, except his solid head so full he can hardly hold it.
Things fall because space curves. Space curves because of matter.
The body’s matter displaces space a little with every step,
and so he falls, my father, his mind on the curve
of pavement, carefully treading on matter’s ghostly shadow.