Pre-Millenial

I’m trying to jump up and down for joy.
I’ve got the trampoline under me.
And I’m bouncing in dead earnest.
I’ve got gravity boots strapped on
In case things get out of control.
Each time the sky gets a little closer,
I see a little farther over the hedge.
Around the rim, two seven-year-old girls
Giggle. We all know:
I’m an amateur, but I don’t mind.
I know I have my work cut out.
Forty-seven years is like an anchor
I forgot to pull up before setting sail.
Nevertheless, now, no, now,
I’m airborne, ascendant.
Why be a rocket scientist
When I can be a rocket,
A tough piece of gristle, but going places.

I shuck the boots,
Feel all my corpuscles rush
To my head, rush to my feet,
Force-feeding both.
Half-way to the roof,
My legs start doing the meringue,
The salsa, the lindy hop, a zydeco
That is pure slink and bounce.
Half-way to the roof,
Quadratic equations start scribbling themselves
Across my brain, vector operations using complex numbers,
The Taylor series, Riemann sums, half-lives of radioactive elements.

The girls climb up.
They bounce.
They bounce holding hands.
They bounce holding hands with me.
We are all doing the hokey-pokey
In mid-air above a suburban subdivision
In a crowded north Jersey county
Where we all know the best restaurants,
Follow the Morningstar report on mutual funds
Arrange elaborate birthday parties
For two-year-olds -- or their parents.
We’re putting our left foot in, taking it out,
Putting our right foot in, taking it out.
We are the world-famous Trampolina Family.

And now, I am doing my world-famous finale act.
Bouncing higher than the red oak on Linden Ave,
I do five quadruple back flips with a triple twist --
On the way down. On the way up,
I’m almost swimming in air,
Doing the backstroke
Practically clawing my way
Back to eternity.