Rapture
after "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall"
by Katherine Anne Porter
It's as though some glittering presence lifts her,
and she rises to the scythe-like beam that laves all
things in acetylene glare. Soon, her flight's an up-rush,
a gyring curl of flame, rococo in its garishness.
The beam cuts through her like sheet tin,
its jet engine of a voice calling out—her name?
But then, the floodlight's quick foreclosure:
it gutters out to nothingness at the now-small end
of the telescope, plunging her through darkness
to a midair collision from which she free-falls,
backward, for at least two thousand years.
Copyright © 2004 Lee Passarella