Forty yards from Haribo Heaven,
They took flight,
Mocking the clouds of traffic:
Faster and faster,
Faster and looser,  
Faster and freer.

But then the Saxon ground
Came out in revolt,
Saying
Their covenant with gravity had been violated.

All sound was muted.

Heads struck at thirty-three yards;
Backs cracked the soil at thirty.
In his heart,
It was her finger that he felt,
Arching over the G string of her violin,
Like the neck of a flamingo.  

He mused:
After the sound came back,
Would she play a gigue or a dirge
To accompany
This ignominious moment?

When her sullied, muddied, mossy eyes looked away from him,
To her, had he become a lesser man?

Faster and faster
Faster and looser.

Had she now glimpsed a father’s struggle
To piece together what he thought he knew?