Since
the moment of my arrival
we’d
been sparring, only half-joking
about
your crazy wish to bungi jump
at
Victoria Falls, finally concluding
I
had no right to ask you not to do it,
you
had no right to ask me to watch.
But
of course I did, and still can,
since
for one hundred American dollars
you
got not only to throw yourself
upside
down off the bridge
between
Zambia and Zimbabwe,
plunging
over the gorge the rocks
the
rushing Zambezi river,
suspended
between life and death
merely
by rubber bands
attached
to your boots --
but
to keep it on videotape.
After
the jump, the slow swaying ascent,
you
bought a dark green T-shirt with
“Bungi,
111 metres, Victoria Falls, Africa”
modestly
embroidered on one sleeve.
I
wear it. And sometimes when
dark
relentless mind seeks
to
fill the gap between laughing
together
in the little rented car
and
waking out of blackness
to
hospital lights and strange faces
telling
me you “didn’t make it”
I
wrench away to see instead
your
strong young body
freeze-framed
forever, bravely
hurling
itself toward the horizon.
I
hear you yodeling in pure wordless
bodily
pleasure, the boundless
exhiliration
of plunging but not hitting
bottom,
conquering gravity,
bouncing
on air above the gorge
the
rocks the river.
And
I am glad you did it.