His First Time: flight by ropes

(for Corbin Vaughn)

By Tyler V. Hayes

it’s fleeting

the rebuff

of a flutter

fleecing

the sway

in his wee

depleted eyes

exhausted

the college

girls of August

ferry a whole

life on the neck

heaving TVs

sleeping late

they flit

from mom

then return

we can’t split

a pendulum

a heavy head

tightened white

like a fading grip

on the tethers

just out of reach

give it up already.