April 23: Staircase

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Martha

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Apr 23, 2025, 7:48:19 PMApr 23

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Staircase
Adam Gianforcaro

I trip on the title,
clumsy as I am, and
topple down the first few
lines. Dorton calls it getting
dropkicked into a poem, some
secondary speaker forcing the other
over the edge, but this was a mess of my
own making, the mind meandering as it does,
dispatching enjambments where they don’t be-
long. And now there’s a figure tumbling forth, their
bony parts smacking the serifed lips of line breaks and
yellow pine. It is not until they reach the carpet-soft landing
that the world above comes back into focus—kids’ toys in the
hallway, a blue bird that found its way indoors. But now that we’re
here together, it’s easy to see why gravity constantly pulls us to the final
line: it is where the writer and reader can link hands, link breath, and if done
correctly, purposefully, will become a platform from which to ascend in unison.

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