Pound

One afternoon near the end, before
               the move, we walk the green by the mall
and stop at the water wall, ever-raining monolith
               amid the heat of glass-refracted sun.
Someone’s adjusted the knobs on gravity:
               kites take flight, planes boom overhead,
grackles drop to the earth and graze the grass
               for limp fries, broken chips, anything
left, even a fragment, they cry and yearn.
 
               My own feet can’t get off the ground so I shuffle
on stone beside you, ducking out of the way
               of a camera aimed at a girl in a grad cap.
We stop in a stone archway, getting misted by the falls;
               a few yards off a man leans close to a woman.
—Beloved, don’t you see it? Spacetime’s curved,
               and our gravity field’s cross sections bend
away, a hyperbolic paraboloid, a salty Pringle
               that falls from the hungry hand at 9.8m/s²
and crunches beneath shoes and bird beaks.
 
               The man is talking low. He gets down on one knee. Right
there. The grad girl’s photographer spots this,
               takes aim. It’s sunny and raining. This space city
is one big pane of glass, high as a corporation,
               a window wall to the stratosphere separating me
from something naked and flying, burning up
               as it falls. I pound it trying to get through.
 
A year later we’re back for a visit and the water’s off,
               the stone is dry, it’s just a big black wall. Cleaning it,
you say, or maybe it’s me, and the other agrees.
               We stare a minute and wait for the Nordstrom cars
to turn into the mall and park themselves.
               Those little ridges now dry, I bet I could climb
to the top, little moon man on a mission.
               And then where? Pound. Stars burn out and fall.
A mouth yelling quiet. Love you forever.
               Pound. It’s buy one get one. Product
of masses, inverse proportion of distance between them
               squared. Once you said I wish you’d just
scream and hit me. Pound. Universal constant, order
               and magnitude. My sweet glass eye take aim,
watch me flame apple red. Where else but down.