The Click Before

I’m watching the screen as the video plays,

and the sky in the background is a summer-time haze.

The coaster is climbing, a slow, heavy drag,

like the pull of a secret or a weight in a bag.

Each link in the chain makes a greasy, loud clink,

forcing the heart to have too long to think.

It’s the climb that is hardest, the mechanical crawl,

before you are given the gift of the fall.

I’m waiting on news in a white, sterile room,

while the phone in my pocket is a small, quiet loom.

I’m at the top now, where the track starts to bend,

just waiting to see how the gravity ends.