Page 41 - Demo

Soon the entrance came around, and I met a man in a pilot’s cap fixed in the door I wanted. He sold agua by the bottle. Thirty pesos normally, he said,
but for me, his good amigo, only ten; he flung
a dark-brown arm behind me and asked me did I want to see the best way down. He meant
for me to leap aboard a wooden lift that bounced in the steady wind a single stride off the cliff, and his jaunty motion made me panicked
over all the months I’d studied and spoken like a good wandering boy who never downed a cold Tecate even when the bottles rolled
within my reach. I slapped money in
his waiting palm and poured a blessing on
my scalp while I stepped—wildly, dementedly—
into the creaking patchwork cage. He crowed, “¡Vete!” I heard a click, and then I plunged
into cross currents that prickled my tense arms
like a hundred nibbling fish. Strata slid
past my streaming eyes in a beige sweep.
Under bending floorboards, yellow-red paradise
offered ballooning blooms in welcome for
my sacrificing stasis on a beautiful whim, and then the rope snapped firm. I inched to the ground gasping
in relief, and overhead I heard a barking laugh
that made me crack a grin. I’d left regret above, released from ravaging my head to scatter in the sky.
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