the continuous efforting
of it all or felt panic
as one dropped into
hard waters an apple
falling from the tallest tree
not that I’m suggesting
you crane your neck
no right in front of you
the human gait is in fact
a continually arresting
falling movement
merely the body correcting
imbalances over and over
again there is only one
vertical deviations from
which all risk someone’s
operative ways for example
how far must my hips
fall for you to yell faggot
at my back or upon which
point of the balls of that
boy’s feet must his weight
settle to explain the emptying
of a twenty-two millimeter
bipedal collapse
yes it is fleeting to be upright
let alone in flight.
Found lines from Erwin Straus’s "The Upright Posture”
Horatio H. is a poet and writer currently splitting time between Brooklyn and Montreal. He is completing an English Ph.D. at Princeton University, where he researches representations of queer life and bodies within outskirt spaces. His writing has recently been published in Lambda Literary Review, Cheat River Review, and New South Journal.