Without Parachutes
The experience of fear is not an observer of it; he is fear itself, the very instrument of fear.
-J. Krishnamurti
In dreams I descend
into the cave of my past:
a child with a morgue-tag
on its toe,
the terrible metal squeaking
of the morgue-drawers,
& the chilly basement
& the slam of doors.
Or else I am setting up dreamhouse,
with the wife
of my second ex-husband.
She complains of him
with breaking sorrow-
& I comfort her.
(She only married him, it seems, for me).
Sometimes I wake up naked
in Beverly Hills-
the table set for ten, a formal dinner-
a studio chief on my left side,
a fabled actor on my right.
Across the table,
Greta Garbo, Scott Fitzgerald,
John F. Kennedy & Marilyn Monroe-
& I alone not properly dressed for dinner,
& besides unprepared
for the final exam,
in which our immortality
will be tested,
& one of us shall perish
as dessert.
Send parachutes & kisses!
Send them quick!
I am descending into the cave
of my own fear.
My feet are weighted
with the leg-irons of the past.
The elevator plummets
in the shaft.
trapped, trapped in the bowels
of my dream,
locked in the cellar
by myself the jailer.
[...] Read more
poem by Erica Jong
Added by Poetry Lover
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