Featured poem for April :
How to Parachute
Disregard
what they tell you—
the pose doesn’t matter
when you jump: feet first
eyes first, cannonball knees into
chest. Don’t think about
how full the sky is how devastating
the blowing wind feels
against goggles. The ripcord
is another detail
your body
will remember
like right and
left, gas and brake.
Folded silk is stronger
than you’d suspect.
Hold your hand out
as though the world is Braille
and passing through
each cloud,
you are a missile dispatched
by someone who knows missiles,
spinning out into nothing, rushing
to the corn fields, the ocean even,
answering all the questions you’ve
had strapped to your back,
knowing at the end
you’ll sway from puppet strings
and be right with the sky.
by
Ethan Joella
