baby, the sky is falling, she says
the sky is falling.

but we are no children’s story –
we have no simple rhymes,
no happy ending.

good does not triumph over evil here.

we are a painstaking post-modern novel,
plot twists wrenched like our hearts,
turned carefully
to move only
in reverse.

I don’t know just how to tell her –

that the sky is not falling.

the sky is not
fall
ing.

I am reaching up with my hands
(yes, those hands,
those slender and
obedient fingers) –

baby, do you hear me?
the sky is not

falling.

I’m tearing it down.