Idol on the Windowsill

Perched on the ledge, high above the street

(the people below, down, down

rushing about as though demons in Hell)

she sits, an idol on the windowsill.

Teetering on the edge, each movement of the wind

swaying her lithe body back and forth

as she dances upon the air:

one foot on solid ground,

the other hovering over the void.

Oh how she longs to fall,

to plunge down at speeds so fast

that she burrows her body into Hell itself.

She longs for the movement, the rush, the crash,

but still stands aloft, unable to put both her feet onto solid ground

or allow both of them to fill the empty.

She glitters like a vessel of solid gold:

perfect, reflective, strong but

no one knows that pure gold is malleable,

bendable with even the slightest touch of the hand.

She is gold through and through

and the glitter hides the warped underbellies

that wrap around the eve of the windowsill,

suspend her from the height,

trapped within the golden confines of herself.