ALAN SHAPIRO

Skateboarder

I was just eighteen
When the first fit
Threw me from my board,

And ever since my life has been
            An afterlife,
Adrift in a regimen

year after damaged year,

Slow walker over a ground
            Of trap doors
The slowness somehow kept

From opening, till now,
            And now I’m falling,
And the thing is

I’m alive again the way
            I was before
When I was beautiful  

At just that moment when
The skateboard hangs, suspended,
Perpendicular above the ramp,

And somehow I’m riding it,
            Nearly parallel
To the ground, right foot

At the low end of the board,
            Left foot at the top,
Torso tipped forward,

Arm flung out for the shifting
            Momentary
Balance as I ride

The upsweep of the invisible
            Wave that
Holds me holding it

Right here, right now,
            Where it neither
Builds nor breaks.  

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