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Sport 24: Summer 2000

The Spirit of the Staircase

page 19

The Spirit of the Staircase

In our game of flight, half-way down
was as near mid-air as it got: a point
of no return we'd fling ourselves at
over and over, riding pillows or trays.
We were quick to smooth the edge
of each step, grinding the carpet
to glass on which we'd lose our grip.
The new stairs were our new toy,
the descent to an odd extension,
our four new rooms at flood level
in the sunken garden—a wing
dislocated from a hive. Young bees
with soft stripes and borderless nights,
we'd so far been squared away
in a twin-set of bunkbeds, so tight-knit,
my brother and I once woke up finishing
a conversation begun in a dream.
It had been the simplest exchange,
one I'd give much to return to:
the greetings of shadows, unsurprised
at having met beneath the trees
and happy to set off again, alone,
back into the dark.