The Heights 

by Jay Udall

My daughter is drawn to heights
that make me shake with terror.

When she was small, Ferris wheels
became my personal hell,

especially when stuck
at the top as luck greeted

those disembarking below
while Rachel giggled and kicked,

rocking us freely over
vertigo roofs and treetops,

and I scolded, begged for stillness.

Then rollercoasters dropped to deaths
I struggled not to imagine,

clenching a metal bar as if
it alone held me to the world

while Rachel threw hands to sky.
Maybe my body remembered

that feeling of falling that came
upon me years earlier,

how any moment any floor
would cave and I’d sink through

my bones, through crust, mantle, core—
descent without descent, lightness

of being above an abyss
I couldn’t see but had to bear.

Then Rachel brought us to a cliff
that plunged hundreds of feet—sheer air

filled with five pairs of crows riding
updrafts and swirling currents—

climbing, dipping, gliding, diving
in the same way I used to fly

in dreams—some magic power
I’d summon by flapping my arms

but had to hide from others.

She stood at the very edge.
To be her brave father, I stood

close by, clinging to a boulder,
and let the heights open me

to all below and above.

 

Jay Udall‘s latest book of poetry is Reach Beyond Reach (2022 Comstock Review Chapbook Prize). His poems have recently appeared in Great River Review, SLAB, Bangalore Review, and Arlington Literary Journal. He lives in northern Virginia, where he teaches English and lives with four feral animals: a spouse, a daughter, a hound, and a cat.